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Columbia  (initJer^^ttp 

THE  LIBRARIES 


GIFT  OF 
NELSON  GLENN  McCREA 


SAINTS  AND  HEROES 


To  the  End  of  the  Middle  Ages 


BY 


GEORGE    HODGES 


WITH   ILLUSTRATIONS 


'.-'^•NEW  VCRK'"'  ' 
HENRY   HOLT   AN^E?  :(j;OMPANY 


1911 


.1   >  ,  >. ' 


J  >  >  J  J 3' 


Copyright,  191  i, 

BY 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


Published  December,  1911 


})^^ 


>*->^.       ^-/j/e    ^^i^^^^ 


••  •     •     ••...•.«"■,. 

'     •  •  .*  •  '4*"**^.  "•  •"-  •  •  •  •  r  I 
•'   V  :  ;• ;  •... 


CONTENTS 


Cyprian,  200-258    . 
Athanasius,  296-373 
Ambrose,  340-397  . 
Chrysostom,  347-407 
Jerome,  340-420     . 
Augustine,  354-430 
Benedict,  480-543  . 
Gregory  the  Great,  540-604 
CoLUMBA,  521-597  . 
Charlemagne,  742-814 
Hildebrand,    1 020- 1 08  5 
Anselm,  1 033- II 09 
Bernard,  1091-1153 
Becket,   II 1 8- 1 170 
Langton,  1 170-1228 
Dominic,  ii 70-1 221 
Francis,  1182-1226 
Wycliffe,  1320-1384 
Hus,   1373-1415      . 
Savonarola,  145  2- 149  8 


PAGE 

3 
15 
27 

41 

56 
68 

87 

99 

113 
126 

138 

151 
166 

182 

199 

209 

219 

234 
248 

258 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


St.  Francis  of  Assisi  Preaching  to 

THE  Birds  .  .  Frontispiece 

PAGE 
27 

41 
56 

68 

87 

99 

113 
126 

151 
166 

182 

199 

209 

234 
248 

258 


St.  Ambrose   .... 
St.  Chrysostom  and  Other  Saints 
St.  Jerome      .... 
St.  Augustine,  with  His  Mother 
St.  John  and  St.  Benedict 
Gregory  the  Great 

COLUMBA 

Charlemagne 

Anselm 

Virgin  and  St.  Bernard 

Becket  . 

Langton 

St.  Dominic    . 

Wycliffe 

John  Hus 

Savonarola     . 


SAINTS    AND    HEROES 

TO  THE  END  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 


CYPRIAN 

200-258 

Just  about  the  time  when  Cyprian  was 
born  in  Carthage,  Perpetua  and  Felicitas 
amazed  the  people.  Everybody  was  talk- 
ing about  it. 

Perpetua  was  twenty-two  years  old. 
Cyprian's  father  and  mother  must  have 
known  her  very  well.  The  two  families 
belonged  to  the  same  high-born  and 
wealthy  society.  They  were  all  pagans 
together.  But  Perpetua  had  become  a 
Christian.  It  was  as  if,  in  Russia,  the 
daughter  of  a  noble  family  should  become 
an  anarchist. 

She  joined  the  Christians.  Then  spies 
broke  in  upon  a  secret  meeting.  She  and 
her  companions  were  brought  before  the 
court;  and  they  were  all  sentenced  to  be 
tortured  till  they  changed  their  minds,  or 

3 


4  CYPRIAN 

died.  Felicitas,  one  of  the  company,  was 
a  slave  girl.  Many  of  the  Christians 
belonged  to  the  slave  class.  The  new 
religion  was  largely  recruited  from  the 
poorest  people.  The  fact  made  Perpetua's 
association  with  them  so  much  the  more 
monstrous.  Perpetua's  family  and  friends 
implored  her  to  renounce  her  Christian 
faith.  They  brought  her  little  baby  and 
begged  her,  for  the  child's  sake,  to  sacrifice 
to  the  gods,  and  come  home.  But  she  re- 
fused. The  young  men  who  were  arrested 
with  her  were  thrown  to  the  lions.  Per- 
petua  and  Felicitas  were  tossed  by  a  wild 
cow,  and  finally  killed  by  the  gladiators. 
Amidst  such  scenes,  Cyprian  was  born 
in  Carthage.  In  his  childhood,  the  Chris- 
tians were  still  in  constant  peril.  They 
were  daily  liable  to  insult,  hooting,  and 
stoning  in  the  streets.  The  emperor 
Septimius  Severus  made  it  a  crime  under 
the  law  to  invite  anybody  to  join  the 
Christian    society.    .  There    was    even    a 


CYPRIAN  S 

proposition  to  deny  to  the  Christians  the 
right  of  decent  burial. 

Then  the  emperors  became  too  busy 
with  other  matters  to  pay  much  further 
attention  to  the  spread  of  Christianity. 
Some  of  them  were  occupied  with  vicious 
pleasures,  some  with  civil  strife,  some  with 
the  increasing  dangers  of  barbarian  in- 
vasion. There  was  a  long  peace.  Maxi- 
min,  indeed,  broke  it  in  235;  but  other- 
wise it  extended  from  the  beginning  of  the 
young  manhood  of  Cyprian  till  he  was 
of  an  age  of  between  fifty-five  and  sixty 
years. 

When  the  persecution  began  again,  in 
249,  in  the  reign  of  Decius,  Cyprian  him- 
self had  become  a  Christian. 

He  had  first  chosen  the  profession  of 
the  law,  and  attained  a  wide  reputation 
for  his  eloquence,  and  had  become  a  sena- 
tor. He  was  rich  both  by  his  own  efforts 
and  by  his  family  inheritance  and  lived 
handsomely  in  a  great  house,  in  the  midst 


6  CYPRIAN 

of  extensive  grounds.  He  had  the  esteem 
of  his  fellow  citizens.  He  seemed  to  be 
in  possession  of  all  that  makes  life  pleas- 
ant. He  had  reached  the  age  of  forty-five, 
v^^hen  one  is  easily  contented  with  a  com- 
fortable estate,  and  indisposed  to  change. 

About  that  time  he  wrote  a  letter  to 
his  friend  Donatus.  "  Donatus," — he  said, 
in  efifect, — "  this  is  a  cheerful  world  in- 
deed as  I  see  it  from  my  fair  garden,  under 
the  shadow  of  my  vines.  But  if  I  could  as- 
cend some  high  mountain,  and  look  out  over 
the  wide  lands,  you  know  very  well  what 
I  should  see:  brigands  on  the  highways, 
pirates  on  the  seas,  armies  fighting,  cities 
burning,  in  the  amphitheaters  men  mur- 
dered to  please  applauding  crowds,  selfish- 
ness and  cruelty  and  misery  and  despair 
under  all  roofs.  It  is  a  bad  world,  Dona- 
tus, an  incredibly  bad  world.  But  I  have 
discovered  in  the  midst  of  it  a  company  of 
quiet  and  holy  people  who  have  learned  a 
great  secret.    They  have  found  a  joy  which 


CYPRIAN  7 

is  a  thousand  times  better  than  any  of  the 
pleasures  of  our  sinful  life.  They  are 
despised  and  persecuted,  but  they  care  not: 
they  are  masters  of  their  souls.  They  have 
overcome  the  world.  These  people,  Dona- 
tus,  are  the  Christians, — and  I  am  one  of 
them." 

Cyprian  was  baptized.  Within  a  year, 
he  was  ordained.  Within  another  year, 
the  bishop  of  Carthage  died,  and  Cyprian 
was  chosen  in  his  place.  The  choice  was 
made  by  the  Christian  people.  They  de- 
manded Cyprian.  They  besieged  his 
house,  shouting  his  name.  They  gave 
him  no  peace  till  he  consented.  Thus  he 
became,  as  the  title  ran,  the  Pope  of 
Carthage. 

Then  arose  the  Decian  persecution. 

The  thousandth  year  of  the  history  of 
Rome  had  been  celebrated  with  triumphal 
games,  and  the  emperor  Decius  was  re- 
solved to  make  the  empire  great  again  as 
it  had  been  of  old.     But  two  things  were 


8  CYPRIAN 

necessary:  one  was  the  favor  of  the  gods, 
the  other  was  the  unity  of  the  people. 
And  both  of  these  were  contradicted  by  the 
Christians.  They  not  only  refused  to 
worship  the  gods,  but  daily  reviled  them; 
and  they  were  a  mysterious  society,  having 
their  own  purposes,  keeping  themselves 
apart  from  their  neighbors.  Plainly  the 
first  step  toward  a  renewal  of  the  old 
strength  and  glory  of  Rome  was  to  put 
an  end  to  the  Christians. 

Thus  began  the  first  general  persecution. 
For  almost  a  hundred  years  the  Christians 
had  lived  in  peril  of  their  lives.  Now  in 
this  city  and  now  in  that,  they  had  been 
chased  through  the  streets  by  mobs,  and 
flung  to  lions  and  fire  in  the  arena.  But,  at 
the  command  of  Decius,  the  whole  might 
of  the  Roman  Empire  was  arrayed  against 
them.  In  all  places.  Christians  were  thrust 
into  prisons,  scourged,  starved,  beaten 
with  forks  of  iron,  driven  into  the  moun- 
tains and  the  deserts.     In  Rome,  in  Jeru- 


CYPRIAN  9 

salem,  in  Antioch,  the  bishop  died  a 
martyr. 

The  persecution  made  two  significant 
disclosures. 

It  showed,  on  the  one  side,  how  great  a 
place  the  Christian  religion  had  come  to 
hold  in  the  lives  of  the  people.  For  the 
sake  of  it,  they  despised  death.  They 
withstood  the  whole  force  of  the  imperial 
power.  They  declared  that  they  were 
Christians,  and  no  torture  could  make 
them  deny  their  faith.  The  storm  raged 
for  more  than  a  year,  and  when,  in  251, 
Decius  fell  in  battle  fighting  against  the 
Goths,  and  the  persecution  ceased,  the 
Christians  were  not  defeated.  They  had 
suffered  untold  distresses,  but  the  endeavor 
to  destroy  them   had   failed. 

On  the  other  side,  the  persecution  dis- 
closed an  unexpected  weakness.  The  long 
peace  which  preceded  it  had  brought 
into  the  Church  a  great  number  of  per- 
sons  who    had   brought   their   sins    along 


lo  CYPRIAN 

with  them.  That  quiet  and  holy  company 
which  Cyprian  had  described  to  Donatus 
had  come  to  contain  men  and  women  with- 
out any  real  understanding  of  religion,  led 
astray  by  avarice  and  evil  temper  and 
offenses  of  the  flesh,  and  ministered  to  by 
priests  and  even  by  bishops  who  were 
neglectful  of  their  duties,  and  examples 
of  evil  rather  than  of  good.  When  the 
persecution  fell,  these  bad  Christians,  and 
a  still  greater  crowd  of  weak  ones,  ap- 
peared immediately.  They  renounced 
their  religion.  They  sacrificed  to  idols. 
The  pagan  altars  were  crowded  with 
throngs  of  Christians  in  desperate  haste  to 
forsake  Christ. 

When  the  persecution  was  over  the 
Church  was  confronted  with  two  serious 
problems. 

The  first  problem  concerned  the  proper 
treatment  of  those  who  had  denied  the  faith. 
A  great  number  of  these  weak  and  fright- 
ened people  who  had  deserted  their  reli- 


CYPRIAN  II 

gion  desired  to  return.  What  should  be  done 
about  them?  Some  proposed  to  meet  them 
with  charity,  and  welcome  such  as  were 
really  ashamed  and  sorry,  with  all  loving 
kindness.  Others  proposed  to  meet  them 
with  severity,  and  were  reluctant  to  take 
them  back  on  any  terms  whatever.  Let 
them  wait  for  the  everlasting  verdict  of 
God. 

The  second  problem  arose  from  the  in- 
creasing bitterness  with  which  this  debate 
was  carried  on.  The  advocates  of  severity 
refused  to  yield  anything  to  the  advocates 
of  charity.  And  when  the  charitable  peo- 
ple won  the  day  in  the  decisions  of  Chris- 
tian assemblies,  the  severe  people  declared 
that  they  would  not  belong  to  a  church 
which  could  deal  with  mortal  sin  so  lightly. 
They  went  apart  by  themselves,  and  chose 
their  own  bishops  and  made  their  own 
laws.  Thus  to  the  question,  What  shall 
we  do  with  those  who  have  denied  the 
faith?  was  added  the  question,  What  shall 


12  CYPRIAN 

we  do  with  those  who  have  separated  from 
the  Church? 

Cyprian  came  back  from  the  safe  place 
which  had  sheltered  him  during  the  storm 
of  persecution  and  met  these  difficult 
problems.  To  his  clear,  legal  mind, 
trained  in  the  conduct  of  Roman  adminis- 
tration, the  need  of  the  moment  was  a 
strong,  central  authority.  As  regarded  the 
lapsed,  he  was  on  the  side  of  charity.  How 
could  he  be  otherwise  who,  in  fear  or  in 
prudence,  had  concealed  himself  from  the 
perils  of  martyrdom?  But  as  regarded 
the  separatists,  he  took  the  position  to 
which  his  experience  as  a  Roman  lawyer 
inclined  him.  He  maintained  the  author- 
ity of  the  Church.  There  is  only  one 
church,  he  said,  and  outside  of  it  is  no 
salvation.  "  Whoever  he  is  and  wherever 
he  is,  he  is  not  a  Christian  who  is  not  in 
the  Church  of  Christ."  And  the  Church, 
he  said,  consists  of  those  who  obey  the 
regularly  appointed  bishop.    "  The  bishop 


CYPRIAN  13 

is  in  the  Church,  and  the  Church  is  in  the 
bishop,  and  if  any  one  is  not  with  the 
bishop,  he  is  not  with  the  Church."  The 
statements  are  important,  because  they  are 
the  first  clear  utterances  of  a  new  era. 
They  mark  the  definite  beginning  of  the 
Church  as  a  factor  of  essential  importance 
in  the  Christian  religion. 

Then  the  persecution  under  Decius  was 
followed  by  a  persecution  under  Valerian. 

The  attack  of  Decius  had  been  directed 
against  all  Christians;  the  attack  of  Vale- 
rian was  directed  mainly  against  the  clergy. 
The  idea  was  that  if  the  leaders  were  taken 
away  the  Christian  societies  would  fall 
into  confusion.  Thus,  in  Carthage,  the 
storm  fell  on  Cyprian.  He  made  no  at- 
tempt to  escape.  He  was  arrested,  and 
brought  to  the  court  through  streets  lined 
with  people.  Christian  and  pagan.  "  Your 
name  is  Cyprian?"  asked  the  proconsul. 
"  It  is,"  "  You  are  the  pope  of  a  sacri- 
legious sect?  "    "  I  am."     "  The  emperors 


14  CYPRIAN 

require  you  to  offer  sacrifice."  "  I  refuse 
to  do   so." 

Thereupon  the  inevitable  sentence  was 
pronounced.  "Thanks  be  to  God!"  said 
Cyprian. 

He  was  led  to  the  place  of  execution, 
the  whole  city  attending.  There  was  no 
pagan  shouting.  The  man  of  blameless 
life  and  devotion  to  the  good  of  others 
had  won  the  esteem  and  affection  of  his 
neighbors.  He  took  off  his  red  cloak,  and 
knelt  in  prayer.  He  directed  that  twenty- 
five  pieces  of  gold  should  be  given  to  the 
executioner.  Then  he  bowed  his  head, 
and  the  ax  descended. 


ATHANASIUS 

296-373 
One  day,  in  Alexandria,  a  bishop  was 
standing  by  a  window  in  his  house,  which 
looked  out  over  the  sea.  He  had  invited 
some  people  to  dinner,  and  they  were  late 
in  coming,  and  he  was  waiting.  When 
they  came  they  found  the  bishop  so  in- 
terested in  what  he  saw  out  of  the  window 
that  they  looked  also.  On  the  shore  of  the 
sea  a  little  group  of  boys  were  "  playing 
church."  One  was  the  minister,  the  others 
were  the  congregation.  The  boy  who  was 
the  minister  called  up  the  others  one  by 
one  and  baptized  them  in  the  sea;  and 
this  he  did  just  as  it  was  done  in  church, 
saying  the  right  words  and  doing  the 
right  acts;  The  bishop  beckoned  to  the 
boy.  "What  is  your  name?"  he  said. 
And  the  boy  answered,  "  Athanasius." 

15 


1 6  ATHANASIUS 

Some  years  after,  when  Athanasius  had 
come  to  the  last  year  of  school,  the  bishop 
took  him  into  his  own  house,  and  he  be- 
came his  secretary,  and  the  bishop  loved 
him  as  a  son.  The  lad  desired  to  be  a 
minister  in  earnest,  and  the  bishop  taught 
him,  and  at  last  ordained  him. 

Now  the  minister  of  the  largest  church 
in  Alexandria  was  named  Arius.  He  was 
a  tall,  pale  man,  careless  in  his  dress,  and 
with  his  hair  tumbling  about  his  head,  but 
kind  and  pleasant  to  everybody  whom  he 
met,  and  a  great  preacher.  His  church  was 
always  crowded,  and  he  was  much  admired 
for  his  goodness  and  his  eloquence.  But 
Arius  and  the  bishop  did  not  agree.  And 
one  time,  in  the  presence  of  a  large  num- 
ber of  ministers,  at  a  convention,  Arius 
said  aloud  and  publicly  that  the  bishop 
was  not  a  good  teacher  of  religion.  The 
bishop,  he  said,  was  seriously  mistaken. 

Alexandria,  at  that  time,  was  much  like 
Athens  when  it  was  visited  by  St.   Paul. 


ATHANASIUS  17 

It  was  a  place  where  the  people  loved  to 
argue  and  debate. 

Now,  there  are  two  quite  different  things 
about  which  men  may  argue.  They  may 
debate  matters  which  can  be  decided  by 
weights  or  measures;  as,  for  example,  the 
height  of  a  house.  And  they  may  come  to 
a  speedy  decision  about  which  there  is  no 
further  doubt.  Or  they  may  debate  matters 
which  nobody  understands  or  can  ever 
understand  completely;  as,  for  example,  the 
question  whether  human  beings  have  any 
existence  before  they  are  born.  Here  one 
may  say,  "  Yes,  the  soul  of  each  man  has 
always  been  in  the  world,  now  in  a  tree, 
now  in  a  lion,  and,  at  last,  in  the  man"; 
while  another  may  say,  "  No,  the  soul  and 
the  body  come  into  being  at  the  same  time." 
And  such  a  question  they  may  go  on  de- 
bating forever,  because  neither  can  prove 
his  position.  The  Alexandrians  were  fond 
of  discussing  these  hard  problems.  They 
were,   therefore,   greatly   interested   in   the 


i8  ATHANASIUS 

debate  between  Arius  and  the  bishop,  and 
everybody  took  part  in  it,  on  one  side  or 
on  the  other. 

Arius  said  to  the  bishop,  "  You  teach 
that  Christ  is  only  another  name  for  God, 
and  that  there  is  no  difference.  How  can 
that  be,  when  God  is  the  Father  and  Christ 
is  the  Son?  Is  not  the  Son  different  from 
the  Father?  Is  He  not,  indeed,  inferior 
to  the  Father?  There  must  have  been  a 
time  in  the  far  spaces  of  eternity  when 
the  Son  began  to  be,  when  He  was  created 
like  the  rest  of  us.  He  is,  of  course, 
divine  but  in  an  inferior  position."  At 
this  the  bishop  was  filled  with  horror  and 
declared  that  Arius  was  either  making 
Christ  a  creature  like  man,  or  at  least  was 
robbing  Him  of  so  much  of  His  greatness 
that  He  was  not  truly  divine,  or  was  setting 
such  a  difference  between  Him  and  God 
that  there  were  two  gods  according  to  his 
teaching,  two  distinct  Gods. 

This  is  not  the  place  in  which  to  discuss 


ATHANASIUS  19 

this  difficult  matter,  as  they  discussed  it  in 
Alexandria.    This  much,  however,  may  be 
said,    that    Arius    in    taking    the    names 
*'  Father "     and     "  Son "     literally,     and 
making  such   inferences   from   them,   was 
putting  Christianity  in  danger  of  a  pagan 
invasion.     For  if  there  may  be  two  dis- 
tinct gods,  the  Father  and  the  Son,  why 
not  twenty,  why  not  two  hundred?     We 
have  to  remember  that  a  great  part  of  all 
the  people  of  Alexandria  and  everywhere 
else  were   pagans,   and  believed   in   many 
gods.    Out  of  this  the  Christians  had  been 
saved.     They  had   daily  evidence  of   the 
confusion  and  doubt  and  evil  living  into 
which    that    belief    brought    men.      Thus 
the   doctrine  of  Arius,   while   to  some   it 
seemed  reasonable  enough,  to  others  was 
an  attack  upon  the  very  central  meaning 
of  religion. 

The  emperor  of  the  Roman  world,  at 
that  moment,  was  a  Christian.  Constan- 
tine  was  the  first  Christian  emperor.    One 


20  ATHANASIUS 

day,  as  he  was  crossing  the  Alps  at  the 
head  of  an  army,  on  his  way  to  fight 
for  that  Roman  throne  which  he  presently 
won,  he  saw  a  bright  light  in  the  sky, 
like  a  blazing  cross.  And  that  night,  in  a 
dream,  he  saw  Christ  coming  to  him  and 
telling  him  to  go  to  battle  with  the  cross 
upon  his  banner.  Then  when  he  was 
victorious,  and  was  made  at  last  sole  ruler 
of  the  world,  he  took  the  side  of  Chris- 
tianity. He  stopped  the  long  series  of 
bitter  persecutions.  He  put  an  end  to  the 
effort  which  had  been  made  by  emperor 
after  emperor  to  destroy  the  Church.  He 
became,  in  a  way,  a  Christian;  though  not 
a  particularly  good  one. 

So  when  the  debate  which  Arius  began 
spread  from  Alexandria  to  other  cities 
and  threatened  to  divide  the  Christians 
into  contending  armies,  Constantine  inter- 
fered. One  of  his  great  hopes  in  siding 
with  the  Christians  was  thereby  to  bring 
about  the  unity  of  the  people;  and  here 


ATHANASIUS  21 

were  the  Christians  themselves  divided. 
He  determined  to  stop  it  by  calling  a 
great  Christian  council  to  decide  the 
question. 

The  appointed  place  was  Nicaea,  near 
to  where  Constantine  soon  founded  the 
city  of  Constantinople.  To  Nicaea,  then, 
came  bishops  from  all  parts  of  the  empire, 
from  Carthage  and  Italy  and  Spain  in  the 
West,  from  India  and  Persia  in  the  East. 
Some  were  lame  and  some  were  blind 
after  the  tortures  of  the  persecutions. 
The  president  for  the  eastern  churches 
was  Eusebius  of  Nicomedia,  the  president 
for  the  western  churches  was  Hosius  of 
Cordova.  All  Christendom  was  repre- 
sented. With  the  bishop  of  Alexandria 
came  Athanasius. 

The  purpose  of  the  council  was  to 
present  to  the  world  a  statement  of  the 
true  belief  of  Christians  concerning  the 
nature  of  Christ.  This  they  did  in  terms 
which   were   afterwards   used   in   what   is 


22  ATHANASIUS 

called  the  Nicene  Creed.  Arius  refused 
to  sign  it,  and  a  few  others  agreed  with 
him.  They  were  expelled  from  the 
Church.  Then  the  council  was  disbanded, 
and  Constantine  and  everybody  else 
thought  that  the  trouble  was  happily 
ended.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  only 
begun. 

No  sooner  had  the  bishops  returned  to 
their  homes  than  the  contention  arose 
anew.  Some  liked  the  Nicene  decision; 
others,  as  they  considered  it  further,  were 
not  satisfied.  And  the  unsatisfied  ones 
were  influential  at  the  court.  One  was 
the  chaplain  of  the  emperor.  Constantine 
was  thus  persuaded  that  Arius  was  right, 
after  all.  And  what  Constantine  thought 
was  the  immediate  opinion  of  many  who 
knew  little  about  it  but  were  very  anxious 
to  stand  well  with  Constantine.  Against 
these  Arians  was  Athanasius.  Old  Bishop 
Alexander  had  now  died,  and  Athanasius 
had  been  made  bishop  in  his  place. 


ATHANASIUS  23 

The  dispute  became  a  struggle  between 
Alexandria  and  Constantinople,  between 
Athanasius  and  Constantine.  Arius  him- 
self presently  died.  He  had  been  received 
by  the  emperor,  and  an  order  was  issued 
that  he  should  be  restored  to  the  commun- 
ion of  the  Church.  The  old  man  was 
actually  on  his  way  to  the  service  when 
he  was  seized  with  a  bitter  pain,  so  that 
he  stopped  in  the  street  and  sought  refuge 
in  the  nearest  house.  The  triumphal  pro- 
cession waited  for  him  at  the  door.  At 
last  a  man  came  out  and  said  that  Arius 
was  dead.  Constantine  too  came  to  the 
end  of  his  great  life,  but  his  sons 
who  succeeded  him  were  on  the  Arian 
side. 

Athanasius  was  banished  from  his  city, 
and  came  back  only  to  be  banished  again. 
Once  on  his  return  the  rejoicings  were 
so  great  that  in  after  years,  when  the 
youth  of  Alexandria  praised  the  splen- 
dor  of    any    festival,    the   old    men    said, 


24  ATHANASIUS 

*'  Yes,  but  you  should  have  been  here  on 
the  day  when  Pope  Athanasius  came 
home." 

Troops  were  sent  to  Alexandria. 
Athanasius  was  besieged  in  the  church 
where  he  was  holding  service.  It  was  in 
the  night,  and  the  great  church,  crowded 
with  worshipers,  was  dimly  lighted  with 
lamps.  The  soldiers  broke  down  the 
doors,  and  with  drawn  swords  made  their 
way  through  the  congregation,  in  the 
midst  of  wild  disorder,  to  the  chancel. 
Athanasius  was  rescued  by  his  friends 
after  being  nearly  torn  in  pieces.  He 
escaped  to  the  desert. 

One  time  he  was  pursued  by  his  enemies 
on  the  Nile.  As  he  rounded  a  bend  of  the 
river,  in  the  dusk,  he  ordered  his  rowers  to 
turn  back.  His  pursuers  came  on  with 
all  haste  and  in  the  dusk  of  the  late  after- 
noon the  two  boats  met.  "  Have  you  seen 
Athanasius?"  the  soldiers  called  across 
the    water.      "  Yes,"    replied    the    bishop, 


ATHANASIUS  25 

"he  is  not  far  away!"     Thus  he  escaped 
again. 

This  life  of  hardship  and  danger 
Athanasius  lived  because  he  was  not  will- 
ing to  deny  what  he  held  to  be  the  faith. 
The  whole  Church  seemed  to  be  against 
him.  Council  after  council  was  called  by 
the  emperors,  attended  by  hundreds  of 
bishops,  making  Arian  creeds.  The  whole 
empire  was  thrown  into  confusion. 
Athanasius,  on  the  other  side,  was  preach- 
ing sermons  and  writing  books  and  letters. 
The  one  man  defied  the  Church.  And  he 
gained  the  victory!  Year  by  year,  it 
became  plain  that  the  theology  of  Arius 
was  filled  with  confusion.  People  were 
perplexed  by  a  long  series  of  different 
Arian  statements  of  belief.  Athanasius 
maintained  the  divinity  of  Christ,  in 
whom  God  dwelt  among  men.  People 
were  dismayed  at  the  energy  with  which 
the  Arian  court  used  the  sw^ords  of  soldiers 
to  maintain   its  side.     The   Church  grew 


26  ATHANASIUS 

weary  of  the  fierce  debate.  Then  the 
last  of  the  Arian  emperors  fell  in  battle 
with  the  Goths,  and  the  war  was  ended. 
Theodosius,  who  followed  him,  was  of 
the  faith  of  Athanasius, 


ST.  AMBROSE 

From  a  mural  painting,  Castle  of  Karlstein,  Bohemia 


AMBROSE 

3+0-397 

The  experience  of  Athanasius  showed 
plainly  that  while  a  pagan  emperor  might 
be  a  dangerous  enemy  to  the  Church,  a 
Christian  emperor  might  be  a  very  in- 
convenient friend. 

Not  many  of  the  rulers  of  Rome  de- 
clared so  bluntly  as  Constantius  that  they 
meant  to  rule  the  Church,  but  that  was 
the  intention  of  most  of  them.  They 
wished  to  use  the  Church  as  a  general 
uses  an  army,  and  the  first  necessity  was 
obedience.  It  took  hundreds  of  years  to 
work  out  the  idea,  under  which  we  live, 
that  the  state  is  to  attend  to  matters  politi- 
cal, and  the  Church  to  matters  religious. 

Meanwhile,  the  Church  and  the  State 
fought  for  the  mastery.  The  beginning 
of  that  long  struggle,  in  which  the  Church 

ay 


28  AMBROSE 

was  defeated  in  the  East  and  the  State  was 
defeated  in  the  West,  appears  in  the  lives 
of  Chrysostom  and  Ambrose. 

In  the  city  of  Milan,  they  were  electing 
a  bishop.  Some  of  the  Christians  were 
Arians,  some  were  Athanasians,  and  there 
was  much  excitement.  The  great  church 
was  crowded  with  people,  shouting  the 
names  of  their  favorite  candidates.  In  the 
high  seat  where  the  bishop  was  accus- 
tomed to  sit,  sat  the  Roman  governor  Am- 
brose, presiding  over  the  assembly  to  keep 
order.  Back  in  the  church,  a  man  had 
lifted  his  small  child  to  his  shoulder  to 
give  him  a  good  look  over  the  crowd,  and 
the  child  saw  Ambrose,  in  his  robes  of 
office,  in  the  bishop's  chair.  In  his  sur- 
prise, he  called  out  in  his  shrill  voice, 
over  all  the  noise,  "Ambrose  is  bishop!" 
Immediately  the  words  were  taken  up, 
and  in  a  moment  all  the  other  names  were 
set  aside,  and  everybody  was  shouting: 
"Ambrose  is  bishop!  Ambrose  is  bishop!" 


AMBROSE  29 

Nothing  was  further  from  the  plans  of 
Ambrose.  He  was  a  great  Roman  noble. 
His  father,  as  Prefect  of  Gaul,  had  been 
ruler  over  the  greater  part  of  Europe, 
and  Ambrose  was  following  in  his  steps. 
He  was  interested,  indeed,  in  the  Christian 
religion;  but  he  had  never  been  baptized. 
He  had  never  even  thought  of  the  possi- 
bility of  entering  into  the  work  of  the 
Christian  ministry.  He  was  both  astonished 
and  displeased.  He  refused  to  consent  to 
the  demand  of  the  people.  Still  the  crowd 
shouted,  and,  though  the  governor  dis- 
missed the  assembly,  and  sent  them  home, 
they  besieged  him  as  the  Christians  of 
Carthage  had  besieged  Cyprian.  Finally, 
much  against  his  will,  he  agreed  to  do  as 
they  desired.  He  was  baptized,  confirmed, 
admitted  to  the  Holy  Communion,  or- 
dained deacon,  ordained  priest,  and  con- 
secrated bishop  of  Milan,  all  in  one  week. 

Ambrose  found  that,  as  bishop  of  Milan, 
he  was  in  a  place  of  as  much  public  im- 


V 


30  AMBROSE 

portance  as  had  been  held  by  his  father 
who  ruled  Europe.  He  took  a  great  part 
in  three  notable  contentions  of  his  time: 
against  paganism,  against  Arianism,  and 
against  the  emperor. 

Ambrose  saw  the  end  of  paganism.  He 
was  himself  concerned  in  one  of  its  last 
defeats,  and  the  others  occurred  during 
his  lifetime.  His  own  fight  against  the 
old  gods  was  over  the  Altar  of  Victory. 
In  the  senate  house  at  Rome  had  stood 
from  times  immemorial  an  Altar  of  Vic- 
tory. Above  it  was  a  winged  figure  with 
hands  uplifted,  standing  on  a  globe, — 
Victory  herself,  the  goddess  of  the  Good 
Luck  of  Rome,  in  shining  gold.  This 
altar  a  Christian  emperor  had  taken  away, 
and  the  statue  with  it. 

But  the  senate  was  still,  for  the  most 
part,  pagan.  The  great  and  ancient  Ro- 
men  families  were  pagan.  However  much 
or  little  they  still  cared  for  the  old  reli- 
gion, they  cared  greatly  for  the  old  ways 


AMBROSE  31 

of  their  ancestors.  They  loved  the  cus- 
toms which  were  glorified  in  the  literature 
and  sculpture  of  old  Rome.  They  felt 
toward  the  Christians  as  people  of  long 
descent  and  gentle  breeding  are  tempted 
to  feel  to-day  toward  new  neighbors,  rich 
but  ill-educated,  with  new  ways. 

The  senate,  therefore,  petitioned  for 
the  return  of  the  Altar  of  Victory.  The 
humble  terms  of  their  request  showed  how 
completely  the  old  era  of  pagan  power 
had  passed.  They  asked  only  for  permis- 
sion to  keep  a  few  of  the  ancient  cere- 
monies and  to  say  their  own  prayers  in 
their  own  way.  "  Let  us  have  one  altar 
out  of  the  destruction  of  the  old  religion. 
Pestilence  and  famine  are  abroad,  and 
the  barbarians  are  pressing  down  across  the 
Danube  and  the  Rhine;  let  us  who  are 
still  of  the  old  faith  implore  the  protec- 
tion of  the  gods  who  in  the  ancient  days 
saved  Rome  when  the  Goths  besieged 
it." 


32  AMBROSE 

Against  this  petition  Ambrose  protested. 
The  gods,  he  said,  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  saving  of  old  Rome;  it  was  the  geese 
whose  cackling  waked  the  guard.  And  the 
altar  was  not  replaced. 

But  the  conflict  was  not  over.  In  Alexan- 
dria, the  Christians  and  the  pagans  fell  to 
fighting,  as  they  fought  in  the  days  of  the 
persecutions;  but  now  the  pagans  were  on 
the  defensive.  The  Christians  attacked  the 
mighty  pagan  temple,  the  Serapium,  high 
on  vast  stone  terraces  in  the  midst  of  the 
city,  approached  by  an  ascent  of  a  hundred 
steps.  In  the  shrine  stood  the  great  image 
of  Serapis,  at  whose  fall,  men  said,  the 
world  itself  would  fall.  Up  went  the  vic- 
torious Christians,  clambering  with  clubs 
and  axes  over  the  hundred  steps,  and  break- 
ing at  last  into  the  splendid  shrine.  Here 
they  stopped,  and  for  a  little  space  nobody 
dared  to  proceed  further.  What  if  the 
ancient  legend  should  prove  true,  and 
Serapis   should   avenge   the    insult   to   his 


AMBROSE  33 

image  by  earthquake,  and  lightning,  and 
destruction!  At  last  a  soldier  raised  his 
ax  and  struck  the  idol  full  in  the  face. 
The  cheek  of  Serapis  was  broken,  and 
out  swarmed  a  troop  of  frightened  mice 
whose  nest  in  the  idol's  head  had  been 
thus  invaded.  Then  the  silence  of  the 
destroyers  changed  to  great  laughter  and 
shouts  of  derision;  the  image  was  pulled 
down  and  dragged  about  the  streets.  And 
there  was  no  more  public  paganism  in 
Alexandria. 

In  the  West,  the  conflict  came  to  an  end 
in  a  mountain  battle  beside  the  Frigidus.  ^ 
The  pagans  had  chosen  a  pagan  emperor, 
and  he  went  out  at  the  head  of  an  army  to 
fight  with  Theodosius,  not  only  for  his 
throne,  but  for  his  religion.  As  they 
passed  Milan,  the  pagans  promised  that 
when  they  returned  they  would  stable  their 
horses  in  the  church  of  Ambrose.  Thus 
the  battle  was  joined;  a  fierce  storm  of 
snow  beat  in  the  faces  of  the  pagan  army, 


34  AMBROSE 

and  they  fled  in  hopeless  defeat.  It  was 
the  last  stand  of  the  old  religion. 
^  Meanwhile,  Ambrose  was  contending 
with  the  Arians.  There  were  not  many  of 
them  in  Milan,  and  they  were  discouraged 
by  the  gradual  and  general  failure  of  their 
cause;  but  they  had  the  Empress  Justina 
on  their  side.  She  was  the  mother  of 
the  young  emperor  of  whose  domains,  in 
the  division  of  the  empire,  Milan  was  the 
capital.  The  Arians  had  been  turned  out 
of  their  churches,  as  the  pagans  had  been 
turned  out  of  their  temples.  But  Justina 
was  an  Arian  still.  She  asked  the  per- 
mission of  Ambrose  to  have  for  herself 
and  those  who  were  of  her  belief,  a  single 
church  in  Milan.  Ambrose  refused  to 
give  it. 

The  long  fight  of  the  Arians  against  the 
Nicene  Creed  had  been  fought  and  lost. 
It  had  filled  the  Church  with  clamor  and 
bitterness  and  division  and  tragedy.  Now 
it  was  ended,  and  Ambrose  would  give  no 


AMBROSE  35 

opportunity  for  beginning  it  again.  He 
told  the  empress  that  she  could  not  have 
a  church.  The  empress,  thereupon,  pro- 
posed to  take  one.  She  had  her  imperial  / 
soldiers,  and  she  gave  them  orders  to 
drive  Ambrose  out  of  the  city  and  to  seize 
such  churches  as  she  wished.  The  bishop 
took  refuge  in  a  church,  and  his  people 
gathered  about  him.  There  they  guarded 
him  day  and  night,  passing  the  time  in 
singing  psalms. 

At  last,  the  bishop  had  a  dream.  He 
dreamed  that  beneath  another  church  two 
martyrs  of  some  old  persecution  had  been 
buried.  So  men  went  to  the  place  and  dug 
into  the  ground  with  spades,  and  there, 
sure  enough,  they  came  upon  the  bones 
of  these  forgotten  saints!  And  immedi- 
ately the  saints'  bones  began  to  work  the 
most  astonishing  miracles.  The  lame  were 
made  to  walk,  and  the  blind  to  see.  The 
whole  city  was  filled  with  new  excitement. 
It  was  plain,  men  said,  that  heaven  and 


36  AMBROSE 

the  saints  were  on  the  side  of  Ambrose. 
In  the  face  of  such  reinforcements  the 
empress  prudently  retreated.  Thus  was 
fought  the  last  battle  with  the  Arians  in 
Milan. 

The  Roman  emperors,  after  Constantine, 
were  most  of  them  weak  rulers,  sometimes 
quite  young  men,  like  Constantine's  own 
sons,  and,  for  the  most  part,  governing 
only  a  portion  of  the  empire.  It  was 
divided  into  east  and  west,  with  an  em- 
peror for  each  division;  and  each  of  these 
divisions  was  parted  into  imperial  prov- 
inces. But  there  was  one  strong  em- 
peror, who  in  his  time  ruled  the  world. 
That  was  the  great  Theodosius. 

But  Theodosius  had  a  hasty  temper,  and 
it  brought  him  into  a  memorable  conflict 
with  Ambrose. 

The  people  of  that  time  were  tremen- 
dously interested  in  athletic  games.  They 
went  in  great  crowds  to  the  vast  amphithe- 
aters   where    gladiators    fought,    and    the 


AMBROSE  37 

circuses  where  chariot  races  were  run. 
One  side  was  for  the  Blues,  the  other  for 
the  Greens.  In  every  city  these  sports 
brought  together  thousands   of  spectators. 

Now  it  happened  that  in  Thessalonica, 
a  very  popular  charioteer  had  committed 
a  crime,  and  had  very  properly  been  put 
in  prison  for  it.  The  time  for  the  races 
approached,  and  there  was  the  charioteer^ 
still  in  the  prison,  and  with  no  likelihood 
of  release.  The  people,  for  the  sake  of 
the  race,  demanded  of  the  governor  that 
he  should  pardon  the  charioteer  and  let 
him  out.  But  the  governor  refused. 
Thereupon  a  mob  arose.  They  attacked  y 
the  governor's  house,  and  killed  him,  and 
dragged  his  body  about  the  streets;  and 
they  released  the  charioteer. 

Tidings  of  these  disorders  came  speed- 
ing to  the  ear  of  Theodosius.  The  mur- 
dered governor  had  been  his  intimate 
friend.  His  anger  knew  no  bounds. 
Straight    he    sent    messengers    to    a    com- 


38  AMBROSE 

mander  of  his  troops  with  orders  to  avenge 
this  tragedy  upon  the  whole  people  of 
Thessalonica.  The  soldiers  found  the 
races  in  full  swing.  The  immense  circus 
was  crowded  to  the  topmost  seat.  The 
avengers  entered,  closed  the  gates  and 
drew  their  swords,  and  proceeded  to  kill 
everybody  in  sight.  For  three  hours  they 
murdered  the  unarmed  people.  Seven 
thousand  men,  women,  and  children  fell 
before  them. 

The  story  is  still  remembered  of  a  father 
who  had  taken  his  two  boys  to  the  races, 
and  begged  the  murderers  to  spare  one, 
and  to  this  they  agreed,  but  he  could  not 
decide  which  one.  He  could  not  choose 
either  of  his  sons  to  be  put  to  death  be- 
fore his  eyes.  So  the  hasty  soldiers  killed 
them  both,  and  their  father  with  them. 

Ambrose  immediately  wrote  a  letter  to 
Theodosius.  "  You  are  a  Christian,"  he 
said,  "  and  have  done  this  horror.  Into 
this  has  your  hasty   anger  led   you.     As 


AMBROSE  39 

for  me,  I  pray  for  you,  but  you  and  I 
cannot  stand  together  in  the  same  church. 
Do  not  venture  to  appear  where  I  am 
present.  You  have  done  the  most  horrible 
thing  that  was  ever  heard  of.  Repent  be- 
fore God,  ask  His  pardon  as  David  did. 
May  He  be  merciful  to  your  sinful  soul."- 

In  spite  of  the  letter,  the  emperor  came 
to  church.  The  bishop  met  him  in  the 
outer  porch.  "  You  may  not  enter,"  he 
said.  "  This  is  no  place  for  such  as  you, 
unless  they  come  in  the  deepest  shame  and 
sorrow.  Go  back  to  your  palace.  Your 
hands  drip  with  blood.  Repent!  repent! 
and  then  come;  but  not  now." 

It  is  one  of  the  noblest  scenes  in  history.  /■ 
Never  has  the  Church  stood  out  more 
splendidly  against  the  world.  There  were 
later  times,  as  we  shall  see,  when  bishops 
made  themselves  masters  of  kings,  but 
sometimes  their  victory  was  spoiled  by 
pride  and  selfishness.  The  triumph  of 
Ambrose  was  a  triumph  of  the  Christian 


40  AMBROSE 

conscience.  He  was  strong  because  he 
was  right.  And  the  great  emperor  knew  it. 
He  did  repent.  He  humbled  himself  be- 
fore God.  In  the  church,  in  the  presence 
of  the  people,  he  bowed  himself  to  the 
ground  with  tears.  "  My  soul  cleaveth 
to  the  dust,"  he  said.  "  O  God,  quicken 
me  according  to  Thy  word."  He  made  a 
law,  which  still  holds  in  all  civilized 
countries,  that  no  capital  sentence  should 
be  carried  into  effect  until  thirty  days  after 
the  condemnation. 

/  Thus  in  the  West,  in  the  person  of  Am- 
brose, the  Church  asserted  the  rights  of 
man  against  the  injustice  and  tyranny  of 
the  State,  and  prevailed  over  the  power  of 
kings. 


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ST.  CHRYSOSTOM  AND  OTHER  SAINTS 

From  the  painting  by  Sebastiano  del  Piombo,  Church  of  St.  Chrysostom,  Venice 


CHRYSOSTOM 

347-407 

When  the  imperial  messenger  had  fin- 
ished his  address  to  the  people  of  Antioch, 
there  was  a  profound  silence.  Nobody 
said  a  word.  Only  in  the  borders  of  the 
crowd  could  be  heard  the  sobs  of  fright- 
ened women.  It  was  evident  that  the  sit- 
uation was  most  serious. 

The  emperor,  the  messenger  said,  is  in 
need  of  money.  He  has  to  keep  up  a 
continual  war  with  the  miserable  bar- 
barians who  plunder  our  unprotected 
towns,  and  the  soldiers  must  be  paid.  You 
are  all  rich  here.  Theodosius  lays  a  new 
tax  on  his  faithful  people,  the  citizens  of 
Antioch. 

Within  an  hour,  the  crowd  which  had 
listened  in  ominous  silence  was  a  vast  mob, 

41 


42  CHRYSOSTOM 

yelling  in  the  streets.  They  attacked  the 
palace  of  the  governor,  who  happily  es- 
caped through  the  back  door,  and  saved 
his  life.  They  broke  into  the  great  hall 
of  justice.  There  was  the  empty  seat  of 
judgment,  and  behind  it,  against  the  wall, 
a  row  of  stately  statues:  the  image  of  the 
emperor  Theodosius,  and  of  the  empress 
Flacilla,  recently  dead  and  tenderly 
mourned,  and  of  their  two  sons,  Arcadius 
and  Honorius.  For  an  instant  the  mob 
stood  still,  like  the  crowd  in  the  Shrine 
of  Serapis  at  Alexandria.  Then  a  boy 
threw  a  stone.  It  struck  the  figure  of  the 
emperor.  Instantly,  as  if  it  had  been  the 
breaking  of  a  spell,  rough  hands  were  laid 
upon  the  statues.  They  were  pulled  down 
from  their  places,  kicked  and  struck  with 
clubs,  and  broken,  and  the  maimed  trunks 
were  dragged  in  the  dust  of  the  streets. 
The  trouble  lasted  two  or  three  hours. 
Then  the  soldiers  came  and  took  posses- 
sion.    And  the  people,  scattering  to  their 


CHRYSOSTOM  43 

homes,  began  to  consider  what  they  had 
been  about. 

The  massacre  in  the  circus  at  Thessa- 
lonica  had  not  yet  taken  place.  That  was 
three  years  in  the  future.  But  the  furious 
temper  of  Theodosius  was  well  known. 
What  would  he  do?  How  would  he 
avenge  the  insult  to  himself  and  his 
family?  It  was  true  that  one  time  when 
he  was  told  that  a  mob  in  Alexandria  had 
stoned  his  statue,  he  had  put  his  hand  to 
his  head,  and  laughed,  saying,  "  It  doesn't 
hurt."  But  this  was  a  more  serious  affair. 
He  might  degrade  the  city  from  its  proud 
place  in  the  empire  and  thus  destroy  its 
business.  He  might  multiply  the  tax  by 
ten.  He  might  take  off  the  heads  of  a 
hundred  leading  citizens.  He  might  do 
this  or  that.    What  would  he  do? 

The  only  hope  for  Antioch  lay  in  the 
fact  that  Theodosius  was  a  Christian.  He 
might  listen  to  the  apologies  of  a  Christian 
bishop.    The  aged  Flavian  started,  accord- 


44  CHRYSOSTOM 

ingly,  in  the  dead  of  winter,  over  eight 
hundred  miles  of  hard  road,  with  snow 
lying  deep  in  the  passes  of  the  Taurus 
Mountains,  to  carry  the  repentance  of 
Antioch  to  the  emperor  at  Constantinople. 

Meanwhile,  the  city  listened  day  after 
day  to  the  sermons  of  a  great  preacher. 

The  name  Chrysostom  means  Golden- 
mouth,  and  it  was  given  to  a  man  in 
Antioch  whose  other  name  was  John.  He 
had  prepared  himself  for  the  work  of  the 
ministry  by  years  of  privation  and  solitude 
in  the  mountains,  thinking  and  praying 
and  listening  to  the  voice  of  God  in  his 
soul.  When  he  came  out,  he  had  a  burn- 
ing message  to  men  about  their  sins.  And 
he  feared  no  living  man.  He  was  poor, 
and  preferred  to  be  poor.  He  asked  noth- 
ing, except  an  opportunity  to  speak.  And 
when  he  spoke,  it  was  with  an  eloquence 
which  made  his  hearers  cry  or  laugh  or 
tremble,  as  he  pleased. 

Thus  Chrysostom  ministered  to  Antioch 


CHRYSOSTOM  45 

during  the  long  weeks  of  suspense.  He 
preached  daily.  He  taught  to  people  the 
uncertainty  of  all  the  riches  and  pleasures 
of  this  life,  and  urged  them  day  by  day  to 
store  their  treasures  in  heaven,  and  to  lay 
hold  upon  that  happiness  which  no  chance 
or  change  can  spoil.  At  last  the  bishop 
came  in  sight,  sending  his  news  ahead  to 
Chrysostom,  and  he  announced  it  from  his 
pulpit.  The  emperor  had  pardoned  the 
suppliant  city.  He  was  a  Christian,  and 
he  was  mindful  of  Christ's  great  words 
about  forgiveness.  Then  came  the  bishop, 
welcomed  with  festivities  like  those  at 
Alexandria,  "  when  Pope  Athanasius 
came  home." 

Chrysostom  had  been  for  ten  years  the 
splendid  preacher  of  Antioch  when  the 
bishop  of  Constantinople  died.  Theo- 
dosius  had  died  also,  and  his  weak  son, 
Arcadius,  was  in  his  place.  The  real 
ruler  of  the  eastern  empire  was  a  man 
named    Eutropius. 


46  CHRYSOSTOM 

The  career  of  Eutropius  is  one  of  the 
most  singular  in  history.  He  had  been 
born  a  slave,  and  had  passed  from  one 
master  to  another.  One  of  his  occupations 
had  been  to  comb  his  mistresses'  hair.  He 
had  grown  old  and  wrinkled  and  ugly,  till 
nobody  would  buy  him,  and  he  had  been 
turned  out  of  doors,  like  an  old  horse. 
He  had  found  work  in  the  kitchen  of  the 
imperial  palace,  and  had  made  his  way 
from  one  domestic  post  to  another,  till  he 
had  become  a  chamberlain.  Being  thus 
near  to  the  emperor's  person,  he  had  gained 
increasing  influence  over  that  weak  youth, 
till  he  secured  his  amazing  success  by 
suggesting  that  he  marry  Eudoxia,  the 
daughter  of  a  general  of  the  Franks. 
Now,  the  all-powerful  courtier  and  favo- 
rite and  prime  minister,  Rufinus,  had 
planned  that  his  own  daughter  should 
became  the  bride  of  the  emperor,  and  so 
slyly  had  Eutropius  managed  that  when 
the    wedding    procession    actually    started 


CHRYSOSTOM  47 

out,  Rufinus  and  his  daughter  waited  to 
meet  it  in  state,  till  it  passed  the  house  of 
Rufinus  and  stopped  at  the  house  of 
Eudoxia.  That,  of  course,  was  the  end  of 
Rufinus,  and  Eutropius  took  his  place. 
The  old  slave,  who  had  begged  in  the 
streets  of  Constantinople,  had  become 
the  right  hand  and  master  of  the  em- 
peror. 

Eutropius  had  once  heard  Chrysostom 
preach,  and  when  the  bishop  of  Constanti- 
nople lay  dead,  and  the  churchmen  were 
eagerly  discussing  who  should  sit  in  his 
great  seat,  he  sent  secret  messengers  to 
Antioch,  and  they  stole  Chrysostom.  They 
asked  him  to  get  into  their  carriage,  and 
when  he  was  once  in,  away  they  drove, 
at  post  haste,  much  against  his  will,  to 
Constantinople,  and  there  he  was  made 
bishop.  The  bishop  of  Alexandria,  who 
was  much  disgusted,  having  other  plans, 
was  forced  to  consecrate  him. 

Thus    Chrysostom    became    bishop    of 


48  CHRYSOSTOM 

Constantinople,  and  found  himself  in  the 
midst  of   the   imperial   court. 

The  first  thing  which  he  did  was  to  take 
all  the  fine  furniture  which  had  belonged 
to  his  rich  and  luxurious  predecessor,  and 
put  it  out  in  the  street,  and  sell  it  at 
auction.  He  dismissed  all  the  servants. 
The  splendid  dinners,  for  which  the 
bishop's  house  had  been  famous,  came  to 
a  sudden  end.  The  new  bishop  was  as 
poor  as  the  poorest  of  his  people.  All 
the  money  which  came  to  him  he  spent 
for  the  relief  of  the  needy  and  the  care 
of   the   sick. 

Then  he  preached,  as  he  had  done  at 
Antioch,  terribly  plain  sermons  about  sin; 
and  not  about  sin  in  general,  but  about  the 
actual  temptations  and  sins  of  the  people 
to  whom  he  spoke.  He  reproved  them 
for  the  ways  in  which  they  made  their 
money,  and  for  the  ways  in  which  they 
spent  it.  He  reproached  them  for  the  cries 
and  groans  of  their  slaves,  which  he  heard 


CHRYSOSTOM  49 

from  their  windows  as  he  passed  by  in  the 
street.  He  even  criticized  the  clothes  of 
the  ladies.  He  spared  nobody,  the  court 
least  of  all.  The  proud,  luxurious,  and 
selfish  life  of  the  emperor  and  the  em- 
press and  their  friends  he  disliked  exceed- 
ingly,  and  said  so  plainly. 

From  the  people,  he  proceeded  to  speak 
his  mind  about  the  clergy.  He  found 
them  idle  and  neglectful  of  their  duties, 
and  called  them  to  account.  Some  he  re- 
proved, some  he  expelled.  Thus  every 
day,  by  every  word  he  said,  he  made  an 
enemy.  They  were  enemies  of  the  right 
kind,  who  had  no  place  in  the  friendly 
approval  of  a  true  bishop,  but  they  were 
many,  and  some  of  them  were  in  places 
of  great  power.  They  were  able,  and 
more  than  willing,  to  do  him  harm. 

Thus  the  ministry  of  Chrysostom  in 
Constantinople  was  very  hard.  He  was 
as  eloquent  as  ever,  and  the  churches  were 
crowded   to   hear   him,    but   people   went 


50  CHRYSOSTOM 

away    after    the    sermon    clinching    their 
fists. 

At  last,  the  great  Eutropius  fell  from 
his  high  place.  He  presumed  too  much 
upon  his  power  over  the  weak  emperor. 
One  day  he  said  to  the  empress,  "  I  put 
you  on  your  throne,  and  I  can  thrust  you 
down."  Eudoxia  ran  crying  to  Arcadius, 
bringing  her  little  children  with  her,  and 
demanded  the  expulsion  of  Eutropius. 
And  the  emperor,  with  most  unexpected 
energy,  expelled  him.  So  he  fell,  and 
an  hour  after  he  was  without  a  friend. 
He  had  lost  everything  except  his  life. 
That  he  saved  by  running  to  the  cathedral, 
and  clinging  to  the  altar.  From  that  holy 
place,  nobody  ventured  to  drag  him  out. 
The  bishop  protected  him.  He  faced  the 
crowd  which  clamored  for  the  old  man's 
blood.  He  interceded  for  him  with  the 
emperor.  He  got  him  for  a  time  into  a 
safe  exile.  Even  so,  with  his  instinct  for 
a  preacher's  occasion,  he  could  not  resist 


CHRYSOSTOM  51 

taking  him  for  a  tremendous  text.  There 
was  the  fallen  favorite,  in  the  sight  of 
the  congregation,  on  the  floor  by  the  altar, 
his  hair  in  disorder,  his  clothes  torn, 
trembling  for  fear  of  death.  Chrysostom 
pointed  at  him  from  the  pulpit.  ^'  You 
see,"  he  said,  "  how  uncertain  are  all  the 
honors  of  the  world." 

Now,  the  empress  Eudoxia  had  caused 
to  be  erected,  in  the  square  fronting  the 
cathedral,  a  statue  of  herself.  It  was  of 
silver,  on  a  porphyry  column.  And  on 
the  day  when  it  was  set  up  there  was  such 
a  clamor  outside  the  church,  with  dancing 
and  singing,  that  Chrysostom  could 
scarcely  hear  himself  preach.  He  ex- 
pressed his  displeasure  in  his  blunt  man- 
ner, and  his  words  were  reported  to  the 
empress.  It  was  the  crisis  of  a  long 
hatred.  The  anger  of  the  court  was  con- 
firmed by  the  anger  of  the  clergy.  They 
were  all  against  the  righteous  bishop,  all 
whose  evil  lives  he  had  condemned.    The 


52  CHRYSOSTOM 

bishop  of  Alexandria  had  left  his  own 
city  to  trouble  Chrysostom.  Councils  had 
convened  to  find  some  fault  in  him,  like 
the  councils  which  made  false  charges 
against  Athanasius.  The  affair  of  the 
silver  statue  brought  the  full  storm  upon 
his  head.  Arcadius,  whose  father,  Theo- 
dosius,  had  trembled  before  Ambrose, 
ordered  Chrysostom  into  exile.  And  he  had 
no  friends  to  help  him  whose  strength  was 
of  account  in  such  a  struggle. 

Out  he  went,  then,  into  exile.  And  as 
he  went,  a  black  smoke  began  to  rise  from 
the  city,  and  flames  beneath  the  smoke. 
The  cathedral  was  mysteriously  on  fire. 
It  was  destroyed;  and  the  great  houses  of 
government  about  it  joined  in  its  ruins. 
And  beneath  the  charred  and  broken 
beams  and  stones  which  filled  the  square, 
lay  the  porphyry  pedestal  and  the  silver 
statue    of    Eudoxia. 

They  carried  the  old  man,  under  a 
guard    of   soldiers,    the   whole    length    of 


CHRYSOSTOM  53 

Asia  Minor,  from  Constantinople  at  the 
northwestern  corner  to  the  region  above 
Antioch,  in  the  southeastern  corner.  It 
was  much  the  same  journey  which  Bishop 
Flavian  had  made  when  he  went  to  inter- 
cede for  Antioch  with  Theodosius.  But 
his  place  of  exile  was  too  near  his  friends 
to  please  his  enemies.  Letters  of  sym- 
pathy came  to  him  by  every  mail,  from 
the  bishop  of  Rome,  from  the  bishop  of 
Milan,  from  bishops  of  the  East  who 
braved  the  enmity  of  the  court.  And 
every  mail  carried  back  letters  from 
Chrysostom  to  his  faithful  people  in  Con- 
stantinople, who  were  suffering  for  his 
sake,  to  bishops  and  churches  asking  for  his 
counsel.  He  speaks  of  exile  and  famine, 
war  and  pestilence,  siege  and  solitude,  as 
belonging  now  to  his  daily  life.  The  place 
of  his  exile  was  bitterly  cold  in  winter, 
and  there  were  brigands  who  came  down 
from  the  mountains  to  steal  and  kill.  But 
he  kept  his  courage  and  his  good  cheer. 


54  CHRYSOSTOM 

At  last  an  imperial  order  directed  that 
he  should  be  carried  north  to  the  shore 
of  the  Black  Sea.  Chrysostom  was  ill, 
and  the  summer  was  hot;  the  journey  was 
long  and  difficult.  The  guards  who  con- 
ducted him  had  been  given  to  understand 
that  if  their  prisoner  should  chance  to  die 
by  the  way,  it  would  be  to  their  advantage, 
they  would  be  paid  so  much  the  more. 
And  die,  he  did.  Beside  a  village  in 
Pontus  he  sank  down  and  could  go  no 
further.  They  dragged  him  on,  but  he 
was  evidently  dying.  They  took  him  to  a 
little  chapel,  and  there,  crying,  with  his 
last  breath,  "  Glory  be  to  God  for  all 
things!"  he  passed  away. 

Chrysostom  was  as  truly  a  martyr  as 
Cyprian,  But  the  bishop  of  Carthage  had 
been  put  to  death  by  pagans;  the  bishop 
of  Constantinople  was  put  to  death  by 
Christians.  To  this  pass  had  the  course 
of  events  come  in  that  religion  whose 
disciples  had  seemed  to  Cyprian  so  quiet 


CHRYSOSTOM  55 

and  holy.  While  the  Church  in  the  West 
was  mastering  the  evil  passions  even  of 
emperors,  the  Church  in  the  East  was 
fighting  a  losing  battle  against  the  sin 
of  the  world.  After  that,  in  the  East,  the 
Court  ruled  the  Church,  as  it  does  to  this 
day.  There  were  good  and  brave  men, 
but  the  short  list  of  eminent  Eastern  Saints 
and  Heroes  ends  with  Chrysostom. 

The  life  of  Chrysostom  differed  from 
the  life  of  Ambrose  as  defeat  dififers  from 
victory,  but  the  two  men  were  intent  on 
the  same  thing.  The  emphasis  of  the  min- 
istry of  Cyprian  was  upon  the  Church: 
he  exalted  the  importance  of  the  Church. 
The  emphasis  of  the  ministry  of  Athana- 
sius  was  upon  the  creed:  he  magnified  the 
importance  of  the  creed.  But  the  emphasis 
of  the  ministry  of  Ambrose  and  of 
Chrysostom  was  upon  the  essential  and 
pre-eminent  importance  of  character. 
That,  they  said,  is  the  very  heart  and  life 
of  the  Christian  religion. 


JEROME 

340-420 

When  Athanasius  fled  to  Rome,  he  car- 
ried with  him  two  tall  monks,  straight 
from  the  deserts  by  the  Nile.  They  were 
lodged  in  the  great  house  of  a  noble  lady 
who  had  a  little  daughter  named  Marcella. 
One  of  the  monks  was  a  very  grave  and 
silent  person,  who  spent  all  his  time  in 
Rome  at  the  tombs  of  St.  Peter  and  St. 
Paul.  But  the  other  had  many  a  story  tq 
tell  about  the  wilderness  from  which  he 
came,  and  about  the  monks  who  lived 
there.    And  Marcella  listened  eagerly. 

Even  to  grown  people,  the  accounts  of 
the  monastic  life  were  like  the  descrip- 
tions which  travelers  give  of  lands  hith- 
erto unknown.  In  the  sandy  wastes  beside 
the  Nile  were  men  in  little  huts  who  had 
forsaken  the  world  in  order  to  say  their 

56 


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ST.  JEROME 

From  the  picture  by  Ghirlandaio,  Church  of  Ognissanti,  Florence 


JEROME  57 

prayers  in  peace.  Some  had  escaped  from 
the  dangers  of  the  pagan  persecutions; 
some  had  grown  weary  of  the  life  of  cities, 
or  disgusted  with  the  selfishness  and  cruelty 
of  their  neighbors;  some  had  come  to  be- 
lieve a  new  doctrine  brought  from  the  East, 
which  said  that  the  human  body  is  the 
root  of  all  evil  and  the  residence  of  the 
devil,  and  that  we  must  starve  it  and  beat 
it  for  the  good  of  the  soul;  some  desired 
only  to  be  let  alone.  There  were  thou- 
sands of  them,  living  this  strange  life. 

The  monk  told  how  they  earned  their 
living  by  making  baskets,  and  how  they 
ate  little,  and  slept  little,  and  prayed  much, 
and  how  the  wild  beasts  howled  at  night, 
and  how  wild  and  still  it  was  on  the  wide 
sand  and  under  the  wide  sky.  Marcella 
felt  that  that  was  the  most  wonderful  and 
happy  life  in  the  world.  And  other  Ro- 
man people,  her  elders,  felt  the  same  way. 
The  idea  of  complete  independence  of  the 
world,  of  freedom  from  all  the  cares  of 


58  JEROME 

the  common  day,  and  of  nearness  to  God, 
appealed  to  a  great  many  who  were  tired; 
and  to  some  who  were  penitent  for  their 
sins.  They  said,  Why  should  we  not  go 
out  into  the  wastes  and  woods  and  be 
monks,  like  the  holy  people  of  the  Nile? 
But  years  passed,  and  most  of  the  men  and 
women  lived  in  the  old  way,  till  Jerome 
came. 

Jerome  was  born  in  that  year  when  the 
monks  visited  Rome.  Presently  he  went 
there  to  school,  and  had  for  teacher 
old  Donatus,  whose  Latin  grammar 
was  studied  by  all  the  schoolboys  of 
Europe  from  that  time  forward  for  twelve 
hundred  years.  Jerome  was  an  uncom- 
monly good  scholar  and  his  chief  delight 
was  to  sit  down  with  a  book.  All  his  life 
long,  in  cities  and  in  deserts,  and  on 
journeys,  he  carried  a  book  with  him. 

The  accounts  which  he  heard  of  the 
monks  in  the  East  attracted  him  as  they 
had  attracted  Marcella.    He  went  into  the 


JEROME  59 

East,  and  entered  that  life  of  religious 
adventure.  He  became  a  monk.  He 
found  a  desert  in  Syria,  near  Antioch, 
where  monks  were  living,  and  settled  down 
among  them. 

They  used  to  tell  the  story  of  a  lion 
which  came  one  day  to  Jerome,  holding 
out  his  paw  with  a  thorn  in  it,  and  Jerome 
took  out  the  thorn,  and  the  lion  became 
his  devoted  friend.  Jerome  himself,  how- 
ever, had  much  more  to  say  about  the 
devil.  He  said  that  the  devil  spoiled  all 
the  peace  and  happiness  of  his  life.  He 
had  gone  into  the  desert  to  get  away 
from  the  sin  of  the  world,  but  the  tempta- 
tions to  sin  followed  him.  The  devil  put 
evil  thoughts  into  his  heart. 

Once  he  dreamed  that  God  was  angry 
with  him  for  being  so  fond  of  Cicero;  in 
his  dream,  he  was  in  the  other  world,  and 
the  angels  beat  him  with  sticks  as  his 
teachers  used  to  do  in  school;  his  shoulders 
in  the  morning  were  black  and  blue.    For 


6o  JEROME 

a  good  while,  he  read  the  Bible  instead 
of  Cicero. 

But  he  felt  that  God  was  angry  with 
him  for  much  more  serious  offenses  than 
this.  Day  by  day,  he  found  himself  think- 
ing evil  thoughts;  and  day  by  day,  his 
temper,  which  had  never  been  very  good, 
grew  worse.  In  trying  to  live  without 
eating,  he  injured  his  health.  In  short, 
he  met  with  the  difficulties  and  suffered 
the  pains  which  come  naturally  when 
people  treat  their  bodies  badly,  and  at- 
tempt to  change  the  nature  with  which 
they  were  made. 

Then  he  came  to  Rome,  still  believing 
in  the  kind  of  life  in  which  he  had  been 
so  unsuccessful.  He  devoted  himself  to 
teaching  it.  He  became  acquainted  with 
Marcella.  She  was  now  a  woman  of 
forty,  and  lived  in  a  splendid  palace  on 
the  Aventine  Hill.  Jerome  had  classes  in 
her  house.  All  the  girls  in  Roman  society 
who  desired  to  do  better  than  to  live  the 


JEROME  6i 

life  of  the  world  attended  them.  Jerome 
told  them  what  a  wicked  world  it  was, 
and  earnestly  advised  them  not  to  get  mar- 
ried. All  the  young  men  in  Rome  hated 
him. 

The  meetings  in  Marcella's  house  af- 
fected the  social  life  of  Rome.  Good 
women  came,  and  brought  their  friends. 
The  pleasures  of  society  were  neglected 
for  these  new  studies.  Nobody  went,  as 
yet,  into  the  wilderness  to  pray,  but  many 
prayed  and  fasted  and  did  their  best  to 
live  like  the  monks,  at  home.  Lea 
founded  a  convent  of  holy  women.  Me- 
lania  went  on  a  pilgrimage  to  the  holy 
places  in  Palestine.  Fabiola  established  a 
hospital. 

The  nearest  friends  of  Jerome  were 
the  Lady  Paula,  and  her  daughters.  They 
belonged,  like  the  other  members  of  this 
devout  company,  to  the  ancient  aristocracy 
of  Rome.  They  had  social  position,  and 
wealth,  and  all  the  honors  and  luxuries  of 


62  JEROME 

life.  They  gave  them  up  to  live  in  the 
new  way.  They  spent  their  money  in 
good  works,  and  went  about  in  poor 
clothes,  and  fasted. 

One  of  the  daughters  died.  She  had 
been  so  fond  of  gaiety,  and  had  so  de- 
lighted in  the  pleasant  life  which,  under 
Jerome's  teaching  she  had  given  up,  the 
people  said  she  had  been  killed  by  the 
change.  They  laid  the  blame  on  Jerome. 
At  her  funeral  there  was  a  great  indigna- 
tion, and  some  proposed  to  stone  the  monk 
or  throw  him  into  the  Tiber.  Finally, 
when  the  feeling  against  Jerome  so  in- 
creased that  he  was  in  peril  of  his  life, 
he  left  Rome  and  spent  the  rest  of  his 
days  in  Bethlehem.  Paula  and  another 
daughter,  Eustochium,  went  with  him. 
There  they  built  two  monasteries,  one 
for  themselves  and  such  other  women 
as  might  join  them;  the  other  for 
Jerome. 

The   remainder   of   the   life   of  Jerome 


JEROME  63 

was  spent  in  those  studies  in  which  he  had 
delighted  from  his  youth.  In  the  quiet 
of  his  monastic  house,  apart  from  the  dis- 
tractions of  the  world,  he  set  about  a  task 
to  which  we  are  all  in  debt  to-day.  He 
translated  the  Bible  into  Latin. 

The  Bible  was  the  first  book  in  the 
world  to  be  translated  from  one  language 
to  another.  It  was  brought  over  from 
Hebrew  into  Greek.  That  was  done  in 
Alexandria  about  two  hundred  years  be- 
fore the  Christian  era.  The  story  was  that 
seventy  learned  Jews,  in  seventy  separate 
cells,  turned  the  Hebrew  into  Greek  in 
seventy  days,  and  thus  produced  seventy 
Bibles  which  were  all  alike,  even, — as  the 
phrase  is, — to  the  dotting  of  the  i's  and 
the  crossing  of  the  fs. 

But  Greek  had  ceased  to  hold  its  old 
place  as  the  language  of  the  great  world. 
St.  Paul,  indeed,  had  written  a  Greek 
letter  to  the  Romans,  and  for  many  years 
all  Christian  services  in  Rome  had  been  in 


64  JEROME 

Greek.     But  two  other  languages  had  now 
appeared. 

One  was  the  language  of  the  Goths, 
spoken  in  various  dialects,  by  that  vast 
multitude  of  barbarians  who  every  year 
were  drawing  nearer  to  the  Roman  empire, 
until,  at  last,  in  Jerome's  day,  they  cap- 
tured Rome  itself.  This  Teutonic  lan- 
guage is  of  interest  to  us  because  it  was 
the  parent  of  our  English  speech.  Into 
this  tongue  an  Arian  bishop,  Ulfilas,  had 
already  translated  a  great  part  of  the 
Bible.  It  was  the  first  book  in  all  that 
mighty  literature  which  is  now  German 
and  English. 

The  other  language  was  Latin.  In 
Jerome's  time,  Greek  was  the  language  of 
the  past  and  Gothic  was  the  language  of 
the  future,  but  Latin  was  the  language 
of  the  present.  Into  Latin,  then,  he  trans- 
lated the  Bible.  He  studied  Greek,  he 
studied  Hebrew.  A  friendly  rabbi  came 
over  from  Tiberias  by  night  to  teach  him. 


JEROME  65 

The  work  occupied  him  fifteen  years.  He 
dedicated  it  to  his  faithful  friends,  Paula 
and  Eustochium. 

From  that  day  to  this,  the  Latin  Bible 
of  Jerome  has  been  the  authorized  version 
of  the  Latin  Church.  The  Vulgate,  as 
it  is  called,  is  used  in  the  West,  as  the 
Greek  Bible,  the  Septuagint,  is  used  in  the 
East.  When  the  Bible  was  at  last  trans- 
lated into  English,  the  translators  knew 
Jerome's  Bible  by  heart.  They  brought 
over  into  our  book  the  splendid  cadence  of 
its  sentences.  Of  course,  English  as  we 
have  it  now  is  a  combination  of  those  two 
languages  which  in  Jerome's  time  were  of 
the  present  and  the  future.  It  is  part 
Gothic  and  part  Latin.  But  the  words  of 
Latin  derivation  in  our  English  Bible 
correspond  to  the  Latin  words  which 
Jerome  chose.  They  are  written  over  into 
our  Bible  out  of  his. 

It  is  unhappily  remembered  of  Jerome 
that  he  was  not  only  a  monk  and  a  scholar 


66  JEROME 

but  a  fierce  debater.  He  loved  to  argue, 
and  when  he  argued  he  went  about  it  in 
the  spirit  of  a  fighter.  The  man  with 
whom  he  disagreed  was,  for  the  moment, 
his  worst  enemy,  and  he  treated  him  ac- 
cordingly. He  looked  about  for  every 
possible  mean  thing  to  say  about  him.  He 
called  him  names.  He  accused  him  of 
dishonesty.  He  said  that  he  was  a  liar. 
He  insinuated  that  he  was  both  a  fool  and 
a  knave. 

This  method  of  argument,  no  matter 
how  well-founded  the  argument  itself  may 
be,  always  puts  the  arguer  in  the  wrong. 
He  may  have  on  his  side  all  the  truth  of 
the  Christian  religion,  he  has  the  spirit  of 
the  devil.  It  began  before  Jerome,  and 
continued  so  long  that  we  have  only  re- 
cently outgrown  it.  It  never  did  good, 
nor  corrected  anybody  from  the  error  of 
his  mistaken  opinions.  The  instinctive 
reply  is  not  to  say,  "  Yes,  I  see  that  I  was 
wrong   and   you    are    right,"    but   to   say, 


JEROME  67 

"  Right  or  wrong,  I  will  hit  you  back  as 
hard  as  you  hit  me." 

Jerome  was  a  very  abusive  and  bad- 
tempered  saint.  Still,  that  sort  of  contro- 
versy was  the  fashion  then ;  though  he 
rather  outdid  the  rest  of  the  wrangling 
brethren.  He  knew  no  other  way  to  show 
that  he  was  in  earnest.  And  his  life  in 
the  desert  had  ruined  his  digestion. 


AUGUSTINE 

354-430 

Among  the  young  men  who  listened 
with  interest  to  the  eloquence  of  Ambrose 
in  the  cathedral  of  Milan  was  one  named 
Augustine.  He  was  an  outsider,  a  pagan, 
and  went  to  church,  not  because  he  was 
concerned  about  the  Christian  religion, 
but  because  he  liked  to  hear  good  speak- 
ing. Perhaps,  however,  he  thought  some- 
times, in  the  midst  of  the  service  and  the 
sermon,  of  his  Christian  mother,  Monica. 

We  are  told  much  of  the  thoughts  as 
well  of  the  acts  of  Augustine  by  him- 
self, in  his  famous  "  Confessions."  This 
was  the  first  of  all  the  autobiographies. 
Augustine  was  the  first  man  in  all  his- 
tory to  write  a  book  about  himself.  And 
this  he  did  with  such  frankness,  and  such 
continual  human   interest,  that  it  remains 

68 


ST.  AUGUSTINE,  WITH    HIS    MOTHER 

From  the  picture  by  Ary  Scheffer 


AUGUSTINE  69 

to-day  the  chief  autobiography  in  litera- 
ture. 

Thus  we  know  that  he  was  born  in  ^ 
Africa,  not  far  from  Carthage,  the  son  of 
descendants  of  Latin  colonists,  like  Cyp- 
rian. That  is,  his  people  were  African 
by  residence,  but  Italian  by  race.  His 
father  was  a  pagan,  and  lived  the  careless, 
and  even  evil  life  which  paganism  per- 
mitted. The  one  good  thing  reported  of 
him  is  that  he  did  not  beat  his  wife;  but 
even  that  was  explained  by  Monica  on  the 
ground  that  it  takes  two  to  make  a  quarrel. 

Augustine  says  that  he  was  a  bad  boy 
at  school,  getting  his  lessons  pretty  well, — 
though  he  hated  mathematics, — but  run-  ' 
ning  away  to  play  ball,  and  being  well 
whipped  for  it.  As  he  grew  up,  he  showed 
an  inclination  to  follow  the  example  of 
his  father  rather  than  the  piety  of  his 
mother. 

He  went  to  college  in  Carthage,  a  place 
full  of  temptation,  into  which  he  fell.    He 


70  AUGUSTINE 

says,  however,  that  what  he  most  desired 
was  not  the  pleasure  of  sin,  but  the  praise 
of  his  companions.  Accordingly,  he  pre- 
tended to  be  worse  than  he  really  was. 
One  of  the  lesser  offenses  of  the  wild 
youths  who  were  his  associates  in  college 
was  to  break  up  the  lectures  of  the  pro- 
fessors. A  gang  of  them  would  go  about, 
and  rush  shouting  into  classroom  after 
classroom,  destroying  all  the  order  of 
the  college.  Still,  Augustine  studied  to 
such  good  purpose  that  he  was  asked  to 
become  a  teacher  himself. 

Now  he  found  that  the  pleasant  pastime 
of  mobbing  professors  was  much  more 
agreeable  to  the  students  than  it  was  to 
the  professors,  and  after  being  put  to  this 
annoyance  several  times,  he  gave  up  in 
disgust,  and  found  some  teaching  to  do  in 
Rome.  The  students  in  Rome  were  much 
more  polite  than  in  Carthage,  but  they 
had  a  custom  which  was  almost  equally 
objectionable.     They  would   attend   their 


AUGUSTINE  71 

classes  with  great  diligence  until  just  be- 
fore the  time  to  pay  their  annual  fees; 
then  they  would  depart  and  appear  no 
more.  As  Augustine  depended  on  his  fees 
for  his  support,  this  was  a  serious  matter. 

Happily,  however,  at  this  moment  a 
professorship  fell  vacant  in  Milan;  it  was 
a  position  which  was  supported  by  the 
State,  with  a  salary  paid  from  the  State 
treasury.  This  comfortable  place  was  of- 
fered to  Augustine  by  the  Roman  senator 
who  pleaded  against  Ambrose  for  the 
Altar  of  Victory.    Thus  he  came  to  Milan. 

He  had  now  learned  some  lessons  under 
the  instruction  of  experience.  He  had 
mastered  the  worst  of  his  old  sins.  He  had 
become  interested  in  the  discussion  of  reli- 
gion: but  not  in  the  Christian  religion. 
He  had  found  a  sect  of  people  called 
Manichees,  whose  creed  was  brought  from 
Persia.  They  believed  in  two  gods,  like 
the  Persians,  a  good  god  and  a  bad  one. 
They  had  a  long  series  of  secret  initiations 


72  AUGUSTINE 

by  which  one  passed  by  one  degree  after 
another  to  illumination  and  perfection. 
Augustine  went  a  little  way  in  this  so- 
ciety, but  not  far.  He  was  profoundly 
dissatisfied  with  the  world  in  which  he 
lived,  and  with  himself. 

He  began  to  find  what  he  needed,  in 
the  teachings  of  Ambrose.  Ambrose  said, 
"  Here  is  the  Church,  a  divine  teacher  with 
truth  from  heaven.  Come  into  it,  all  per- 
plexed souls,  and  take  this  truth  and  live 
according  to  it,  and  be  at  peace."  It  ap- 
pealed to  Augustine.  It  seemed  a  pleas- 
ant prospect.  But  his  mind  was  full  of 
questions.  Several  times  he  went  to  see 
the  bishop.  There  sat  Ambrose  in  his 
great  hall,  with  a  book  in  his  hand,  and 
people  coming  to  consult  him.  When 
there  was  a  space  between  these  visits,  he 
read  his  book.  Augustine  hesitated  to  in- 
terrupt his  studies.  He  went  away  without 
asking  any  of  his  questions. 

At  last,  one  day,  one  of  a  little  group 


AUGUSTINE  73 

of  Augustine's  friends  began  to  tell  the 
story  of  St.  Anthony,  the  hermit,  as  it  had 
been  written  by  Athanasius:  how  he  had 
heard  in  church  about  the  rich  young  man 
to  whom  the  Lord  said,  "  Sell  all  that 
thou  hast  and  follow  Me;"  how  he  obeyed 
that  command,  and  took  up  his  lodging  in 
the  desert,  how  he  lived  there  amidst  the 
friendly  beasts,  saying  his  prayers, 
strengthening  his  soul,  and  blessed  of  God. 
Augustine  was  profoundly  interested.  He 
went  away  alone  into  a  little  quiet  gar- 
den and  flung  himself  upon  the  grass. 
"  How  long,"  he  cried,  "  shall  I  pray  *  O 
God,  make  me  a  Christian,  but  not  yet,' 
— how  long  shall  I  be  like  one  who  is 
awakened  in  the  morning  and  knows  that 
he  ought  to  get  up,  yet  lies  in  idle  dream- 
ing." 

Suddenly  he  heard  the  voice  of  a  child 
singing.  Over  and  over  the  child  sang, 
"Take  and  read!  Take  and  read!"  It 
seemed  to  Augustine  a  message   from  on 


74  AUGUSTINE 

high.  Immediately  he  rose  up  and  went 
into  the  house  and  took  a  Bible,  and 
opened  wherever  it  would  open  and  read 
the  words  which  there  appeared  upon  the 
page.  The  words  were,  "  Not  in  rioting 
and  drunkenness,  not  in  chambering  and 
wantonness,  not  in  strife  and  envying;  but 
put  ye  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  make 
not  provision  for  the  flesh,  to  fulfil  the 
lusts  thereof." 

This  experience  changed  his  life.  He 
applied  to  Ambrose  for  baptism.  He  de- 
voted himself  to  the  study  and  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Christian  religion.  He  took  his 
mother,  and  set  out  to  return  to  Africa. 
From  Milan  they  went  to  Rome,  and  from 
Rome  down  the  Tiber  to  the  port  of  Ostia. 
There  they  waited  for  a  ship.  One  even- 
ing, as  they  sat  together  in  the  starlight, 
talking  of  the  past  and  the  future,  Monica 
said,  "  Augustine,  I  have  now  no  more 
to  live  for.  All  these  years  I  have  prayed 
for  you  that  you  might  be  a  Christian. 


AUGUSTINE  75 

Now  my  prayers  are  answered."  The 
next  day  she  fell  sick,  in  a  little  while 
she  died,  the  patron  saint  of  all  devout 
and  patient  and  long-enduring  mothers. 

Augustine  settled  on  the  farm  which  had 
belonged  to  his  father,  and  gathered 
friends  about  him.  There  they  lived,  dig- 
ging occasionally  in  the  garden,  but  more 
for  exercise  than  in  expectation  of  crops, 
and  occupying  themselves  for  the  most 
part  with  quiet  talking,  and  thinking,  and 
reading  and  writing.  One  day  Augustine 
went  on  an  errand  to  the  near  town  of 
Hippo.  There  was  a  service  in  the  parish 
church,  and  he  attended  it.  And  the 
bishop  saw  him  in  the  congregation,  and 
when  the  time  came  for  the  sermon  the 
bishop  said,  "  Brethren,  you  know  that  I 
am  getting  old,  and  am  in  need  of  help. 
I  am,  moreover,  a  Greek,  and  it  is  hard 
for  me  to  pray  in  Latin.  I  ought  to 
have  an  assistant."  Then  he  looked  at 
Augustine,  and  everybody  looked  at  Au- 


76  AUGUSTINE 

gustine,  and  there  was  a  great  shouting  of 
Augustine's  name.  There  was  no  help  for 
it;  he  must  be  a  bishop.  By  and  by  the 
bishop  died  and  Augustine  took  his  place. 

Hippo  is  in  Algeria,  on  a  bay  which 
opens  into  the  Mediterranean.  The  place 
is  much  frequented  by  astronomers  on  the 
occasion  of  a  total  eclipse  of  the  sun.  In 
the  midst  of  the  town  is  a  new  cathedral 
dedicated  to  St.  Augustine,  who  is  still 
known  there,  even  among  the  Moslems,  as 
"  the  great  Christian." 

The  size  of  the  place  in  which  a  man 
lives  matters  little.  The  only  thing  which 
matters  much  is  the  size  of  the  man. 
Augustine  in  the  little  town  of  Hippo  was 
a  person  of  more  consequence  and  influ- 
ence than  the  bishop  of  Carthage,  the 
bishop  of  Rome,  the  bishop  of  Constanti- 
nople, and  the  bishop  of  Alexandria  put 
together.  He  was  the  greatest  man  who 
had  appeared  in  the  Christian  Church 
since  St.  Paul. 


AUGUSTINE  77 

Augustine  now  became  acquainted  with 
the  meaning  of  two  new  words.  One 
word  was  "  schism,"  the  other  was  "  her- 
esy." Schism  means  separation,  and  was 
applied  to  people  who  separated  them- 
selves from  the  Church.  Heresy  means- 
choice,  and  was  applied  to  people  who 
chose  to  think  for  themselves,  and  came 
to  conclusions  different  from  the  common 
teaching  of  the  creed.  These  words  be- 
came important  on  account  of  the  in- 
creasing disorder  of  the  age.  The  Roman 
Empire  was  going  to  pieces,  the  hands  of 
government  were  weak,  the  invading  bar- 
barians were  strong,  the  old  order  was 
steadily  giving  way.  It  was  necessary, 
under  these  conditions,  to  maintain  dis- 
cipline in  the  Church.  There  must  be 
leadership  and  obedience,  as  in  an  army  in 
the  time  of  war.  The  Christians  must  be 
kept  together.  Wise  men  felt  then,  as 
wise  men  felt  afterwards  in  Massachusetts 
in  the  days  of  the  wild  Indians,  that  all 


78  AUGUSTINE 

differences  must  be  prevented.  People 
must  act  alike,  and  think  alike,  and  keep 
step,  for  the  general  safety. 

Thus  Augustine  came  into  contention 
with  the  schism  of  Donatus,  and  with  the 
heresy  of  Pelagius. 

The  schism  of  Donatus  had  now  been 
going  on  so  long  that  many  people  had  for- 
gotten what  it  was  all  about.  It  arose 
after  the  persecution  under  Diocletian,  as 
the  schism  of  Novatus  arose,  in  Cyprian's 
day,  after  the  persecution  under  Decius. 
It  began  with  the  same  question,  What 
shall  be  done  with  those  who,  in  terror  of 
death,  denied  the  faith?  And  there  were 
two  answers,  as  before :  the  answer  of  char- 
ity and  the  answer  of  severity.  The  fol- 
lowers of  Donatus  were  on  the  side  of 
severity,  and  they  went  out  of  the  Church, 
as  the  followers  of  Novatus  had  done,  and 
started  a  Christian  society  of  their  own. 
The  new  church  claimed  to  be  the  true 
church.     It  had   its   own   bishops,   whom 


AUGUSTINE  79 

it  set  up  in  city  after  city  against  the 
bishops  already  in  control.  There  were 
two  kinds  of  Christians,  Catholics  and 
Donatists.    And  they  began  to  fight. 

The  Catholic  Christians,  as  they  were 
called  who  belonged  to  the  old  church, 
appealed  to  the  emperor.  And  Constan-  ^^ 
tine,  who  was  then  on  the  imperial  throne, 
sent  soldiers  to  Africa,  where  the  Dona- 
tists were  in  the  greatest  numbers,  to  put 
them  down.  But  this  only  made  bad  mat- 
ters worse.  The  Donatists,  who  had  re-K 
belled  against  the  Church,  now  rebelled 
against  the  State.  They  became  the  ene- 
mies of  the  established  order.  Some  of 
them  went  about  in  gangs  with  clubs, 
and  broke  into  Catholic  churches,  and 
beat  the  Catholic  clergy. 

They  were  good  men,  too,  many  of  these 
Donatists.  They  fought  for  freedom  of 
conscience.  They  protested  against  the 
endeavor  of  the  State  to  make  them  change 
their  religion  by  sending  soldiers  against 


8o  AUGUSTINE 

them;  and  against  the  endeavor  of  the 
Church  to  make  them  submit  to  rules 
which  they  considered  wrong. 

All  wrongs  and  rights,  however,  were 
now  confused  in  the  long  contention.  It 
was  impossible  even  to  discuss  the  dif- 
ferences in  any  fair  and  friendly  spirit. 
Augustine  tried  it.  There  was  a  great  de- 
bate at  Carthage,  with  Augustine  on  one 
side  and  a  Donatist  on  the  other,  but  it 
came  to  nothing.  It  came,  indeed,  to 
worse  than  nothing,  for  Augustine  in  his 
earnestness  for  the  order  and  strength  of 
the  Church  was  led  to  take  Christ's  words 
out  of  the  parable  where  He  said,  "  Com- 
pel them  to  come  in,"  and  to  apply  them 
to  all  who  were  in  a  state  of  schism.  Com- 
pel them  to  come  in.  Persuade  them, 
argue  with  them,  and  thus,  if  possible, 
convert  them;  but  if  you  cannot  convert 
them,  compel  them.  Send  soldiers  after 
them,  beat  them,  burn  their  churches,  drag 
them   in.      It  was   said   in   a   moment   of 


AUGUSTINE  8i 

deep  discouragement  and  indignation,  but 
it  was  never  forgotten.  It  was  applied  to 
people  in  heresy  and  schism  for  hundreds 
of  cruel  years. 

The  heresy  of  Pelagius  first  appeared  in 
public  in  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to  a 
young  Roman  lady  who  had  resolved  to 
forsake  the  world  and  thenceforth  to  live 
a  single  life  of  prayer  and  fasting.  Many 
of  her  friends  sent  letters  of  congratula- 
tion. Jerome  was  particularly  enthusias- 
tic. Pelagius,  however,  was  not  so  sure 
about  it.  The  world,  he  said,  is  indeed 
a  bad  world,  but  not  so  hopelessly  bad.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  go  out  of  it  in  order  to 
live  a  righteous  life:  nor  does  it  greatly 
matter,  so  far  as  holiness  is  concerned, 
whether  one  is  married  or  unmarried. 

The  letter  came  to  the  attention  of 
Augustine,  and  he  condemned  the  opinion 
of  Pelagius.  Taking  his  own  experience 
of  evil  in  his  early  life,  and  confirming  it 
with   sentences    from    the   writings   of    St. 


82  AUGUSTINE 

Paul,  he  maintained  that  human  nature 
is  bad  completely.  Man  is,  by  nature,  de- 
praved totally,  and  comes  into  the  world 
in  sin,  the  child  of  the  devil;  so  that 
even  a  helpless  infant,  dying  before  he 
has  done  either  right  or  wrong,  must  go 
into  everlasting  punishment  for  the  sin 
which  is  born  in  him;  unless  he  has  been 
born  again  in  baptism.  Nothing  that  we  can 
do,  Augustine  said,  can  save  us,  no  works 
of  goodness,  no  life  of  righteousness:  we 
must  be  saved  by  the  act  of  God.  And 
God,  he  added,  saves  us,  not  because  we 
deserve  it,  but  because  of  His  own  pleas- 
V  ure.  Some  He  has  eternally  predestined 
to  be  saved,  others  to  be  lost.  Our  hope 
is  not  in  our  own  merits,  but  in  His  mercy; 
and  our  help  is  in  the  grace  of  God,  gained 
for  us  by  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ,  and 
given  to  us  in  the  sacraments  of  the 
Church. 

The  effect  of  this  teaching  was  to  in- 
crease the  importance  of  the  Church.    The 


AUGUSTINE  83 

world  was  represented  as  in  the  days  of 
Noah,  wholly  bad  and  under  a  destroying 
flood.  The  Church  was  like  the  ark. 
Whoever  would  be  saved  must  get  into 
it,  through  the  door  of  baptism.  Outside 
were  angry  waters,  and  howling  winds, 
and  sure  destruction. 

So  it  seemed  to  Augustine,  and  the  age 
in  which  he  lived  illustrated  it.  Year  by 
years  rose  the  unescapable  flood  of  the  bar- 
barian invasion.  Goths,  Huns,  and  Van- 
dals threatened  the  empire.  They  came 
over  the  ancient  boundaries  of  the  Dan- 
ube and  the  Rhine.  They  devastated 
cities,  and  laid  waste  great  tracts  of  culti- 
vated country.  And  wherever  they  came, 
they  stayed.     They  took  possession,    v 

Finally,  in  410,  Alaric  the  Goth  sacked 
Rome.  The  Romans  had  believed,  concern- 
ing Rome,  as  the  Jews  believed  concerning 
Jerusalem,  that  it  could  not  be  taken.  It 
had  so  long  ruled  the  world,  that  it  seemed 
a  part  of  the  nature  of  things,  like  the  ever- 


84  AUGUSTINE 

lasting  sun.  But  the  soldiers  of  Alaric 
conquered  it.  The  ancient  city  was  given 
over  to  sword  and  flame.  Amidst  a  thou- 
sand other  acts  of  terror,  the  Goths  broke 
into  the  house  of  Marcella,  and  so  beat 
her  that  she  died  in  a  few  days. 

Only  the  Roman  emperor  seemed  un- 
moved by  this  tremendous  calamity.  He 
was  in  a  safe  retreat  at  Ravenna  when  the 
news  came.  It  is  remembered  of  the  em- 
peror Honorius  that  there  were  only  two 
matters  in  which  he  was  ever  known  to 
show  the  slightest  interest:  one  was  the 
safety  bf  his  own  imperial  person,  the 
others  was  the  raising  of  hens,  in  which  he 
was  very  successful.  His  favorite  hen  was 
named  Rome.  When  they  came,  then, 
V  crying,  "  Your  Majesty,  Rome  has  per- 
ished!" he  said,  "Why,  only  an  hour  ago 
she  was  feeding  out  of  my  hand!"  And 
when  they  told  him  that  it  was  the  capital 
of  the  world  which  had  been  destroyed, 
he  was  much  relieved. 


AUGUSTINE  85 

The  Goths  under  Alaric  spread  over 
Italy.  After  them  came  the  Vandals  under 
Genseric,  and  invaded  Roman  Africa. 
Augustine  saw  them  coming,  a  long  way 
ofif.  He  saw  that  the  catastrophe  long 
dreaded  had  at  last  arrived.  The  Roman 
Empire  had  fallen.  The  old  power  which 
governed  the  world  had  met  defeat.  The 
old  cities  had  new  inhabitants.  Rome  had 
fallen,  and  the  Roman  age  had  come  to 
a  tragic  end. 

In  the  midst  of  this  situation,  the  news 
of  the  march  of  the  barbarians  coming 
daily  to  his  ears,  Augustine  wrote  his 
great  book,  the  "City  of  God."  The  city  v' 
of  Rome,  he  said,  has  indeed  perished, 
but  there  is  another  city,  the  Church  of 
Christ,  eternal  in  the  heavens. 

Augustine  was  now  an  old  man,  and 
ill.  And  the  Vandals  were  storming  the 
walls  of  Hippo.  He  could  hear  the  cries 
of  battle  from  his  sick-bed.  "  I  have  but 
one  prayer  to  God  amid  these  calamities," 


86  AUGUSTINE 

he  said,  "  either  that  He  would  set  this 
city  free  from  the  enemy,  or  if  not,  that 
He  would  make  His  servants  strong  to 
bear  His  will,  or  at  least  that  He  would 
take  me  to  Himself  from  the  world." 
The  end  of  the  prayer  was  answered. 
Augustine  died.  The  city,  deserted  by  its 
inhabitants,  was  burnt  by  the  Vandals  to 
the  ground. 


ST.  JOHN   AND    ST.  BENEDICT 

From  the  picture  by  Perugino  in  the  monastery  of  Santa 
Maria  Maddalena,  Florence 


BENEDICT 

480-543 

When  it  was  reported  in  Rome  that  a 
man  was  living  in  a  cave  in  a  wild  gorge 
by  the  river  Anio,  forty  miles  away,  peo- 
ple were  interested  but  not  surprised.  It 
was  not  at  that  time  an  uncommon  thing 
to   live   in   a   cave. 

The  m.onastic  life,  whose  joys  Jerome 
had  preached  to  the  ladies  of  Roman  so- 
ciety, had  by  this  time  attracted  great 
numbers  of  people,  in  the  West  as  in  the 
East.  This  was  due  in  part  to  two  ex- 
ceedingly popular  books  which  everybody 
read:  the  "Life  of  St.  Anthony,"  by 
Athanasius,  and  the  "  Life  of  St.  Martin," 
by  Sulpicius  Severus.  The  patience  and 
devotion  of  Anthony  in  Egypt  were 
equalled,  if  not  surpassed,  by  the  spiritual 

87 


88  BENEDICT 

virtues  and  adventures  of  Martin  in 
France. 

It  was  Martin  who,  in  his  youth,  a 
cavalryman  in  the  army  of  the  emperor 
Julian,  saw  a  shivering  beggar  by  the  road- 
side, and  cutting  his  military  cloak  in  two 
flung  half  over  the  beggar's  back,  and  that 
night  in  vision  saw  the  Lord  in  heaven 
wearing  the  garment  which  he  had  thus 
given  in  compassion.  It  was  Martin  to 
whom  once  appeared  a  vision  of  the  Lord 
in  shining  apparel,  with  a  chariot  of  fire, 
and  invited  the  saint  to  ride  with  Him  to 
the  gates  of  Paradise;  and  Martin,  looking 
attentively  at  Him,  said,  "  Where  are  the 
marks  of  the  nails?"  There  were  no 
marks  of  the  nails,  and  the  vision,  which 
was  a  trick  of  the  devil,  vanished  in  a 
cloud  of  evil   smoke. 

The  marks  of  the  nails  were  evident 
in  all  the  life  of  Martin,  who  put  him- 
self to  much  privation,  gave  his  days  and 
nights    to    prayer,    went    about    his    great 


BENEDICT  89 

pagan  diocese  on  foot,  braved  a  savage 
emperor  who  had  behaved  unjustly,  and 
a  whole  community  of  wild  heathen  whose 
sacred  tree  he  cut  down  with  his  own 
ax,  and  alike  by  his  courage  and  his 
gentleness  appealed  to  the  imagination  of 
earnest  youth. 

St.  Anthony  and  St.  Martin,  then,  were 
the  heroes  of  the  devout  life  of  the  fifth 
century.  The  man  in  the  cave  knew  by 
heart  the  books  which  told  about  them. 

And,  as  another  and  still  stronger  argu- 
ment for  the  forsaking  of  the  world,  was  the 
condition  of  the  world  itself.  All  things 
were  in  confusion.  Alaric  the  Goth  and 
Genseric  the  Vandal  were  followed  by 
Attila  the  Hun,  and  by  a  thousand  other 
lesser  captains.  The  Lombards  were 
settling  in  the  north  of  Italy.  The  Franks 
were  taking  France.  The  old  laws  were 
no  longer  a  protection,  the  old  customs 
were  giving  place  to  new,  the  wealthy 
and   educated   Latins  were   thrust  out   of 


90  BENEDICT 

their  pleasant  houses  and  these  conquerors, 
uneducated,  only  partially  civilized, 
speaking  strange  languages,  took  posses- 
sion. The  Goths,  indeed,  had  become 
Christians;  but  their  Christianity  was  of 
the  Arian  kind.  And  when  the  Franks, 
under  their  king  Clovis,  were  converted 
and  became  Catholic  Christians,  the 
Franks  and  the  Goths  fell  to  fighting,  and 
the  miseries  of  the  times  were  multiplied. 
No  peaceful  citizen  could  be  sure  when 
he  went  to  bed  at  night  that  his  house 
would  not  be  burned  down  before  morn- 
ing. Under  these  circumstances,  even  a 
cave  in  a  dark  gorge,  while  it  might  not  be 
very  comfortable,  had  at  least  the  advan- 
tage of  being  safe. 

So  thought  Benedict  when  he  hid  him- 
self beside  the  river  Anio.  He  belonged 
to  a  noble  family  in  Rome,  and  spent  his 
youth  there.  And  when  he  had  had 
enough,  and  more  than  enough,  of  the  hard 
world,  he  put  it  all  behind  him,  and  found 


BENEDICT  91 

peace  and  the  presence  of  God  in  his 
cave.  He  had  a  friend  who  every  day 
lowered  over  the  face  of  the  clifif  to  the 
mouth  of  the  cave  a  little  basket  of  bread. 
A  bell  tied  to  the  basket  informed  the 
hermit  that  his  dinner  was  approaching. 

The  reports  which  were  carried  about 
by  neighboring  shepherds  concerning  the 
holiness  of  the  man  in  the  cave  caused  the 
monks  of  a  monastery  in  that  region  to 
invite  him  to  be  their  abbot.  "  You  don't 
want  me  for  your  abbot,"  said  Benedict, 
when  they  appeared  at  the  mouth  of  the 
cave  with  their  request.  "  You  don't  know 
what  sort  of  man  I  am.  You  would  not 
be  willing  to  live  according  to  my  rule." 
But  the  monks  were  full  of  enthusiasm  at 
the  idea  of  a  holy  abbot  and  a  better  life, 
and  they  insisted  till  Benedict  consented. 
So  he  took  command,  and  at  the  end  of  the 
first  week  they  tried  to  poison  him. 

This  experience  disclosed  the  fact  that 
the   monastic   life   needed   reforming.     A 


92  BENEDICT 

hundred  other  houses  of  religion  were 
like  the  abbey  whose  monks  had  found 
the  discipline  of  Benedict  too  hard.  Men 
had  gone  into  monasticism  for  a  great  num- 
ber of  reasons:  because  they  were  afraid 
of  Franks  and  Goths,  because  they  had 
failed  in  business  or  in  love,  because  they 
did  not  wish  to  work.  And,  having  be- 
come monks,  they  were  living  pretty  much 
as  they  pleased,  some  starving  and  some 
feasting;  some  saying  their  prayers,  some 
breaking  the  Commandments.  There  was 
no  order,  or  regularity,  or  common  dis- 
cipline.    There  was  no  accepted  rule. 

When  Benedict  returned  to  his  cave  be- 
side the  Anio,  his  former  solitude  had 
become  impossible.  Good  people  were 
greatly  interested  in  the  abbot  who  was 
so  strict  that  his  monks  had  put  poison  in 
his  cup.  Disciples  gathered  about  him. 
Noble  Roman  families  sent  their  sons  to 
him  to  be  instructed  in  religion.  Pres- 
ently, on  the  wild  hills  in  the  neighbor- 


BENEDICT  93 

hood  of  Benedict's  cave  were  twelve 
groups  of  men  in  twelve  monastic  houses, 
living  according  to  his   regulations. 

But  the  world  was  still  too  near,  and  the 
monks  sought  a  more  secure  retreat.  To 
the  south  was  a  range  of  mountains,  and 
on  the  summit  of  one  of  them,  called 
Monte  Cassino,  they  found  a  little  temple 
with  an  altar  dedicated  to  Apollo,  standing 
in  a  grove.  There  were  still  a  few  coun- 
try people  who  came  to  offer  their  sacri- 
fices in  the  old  way.  It  was  one  of  many 
hidden  places,  among  the  woods  and  in 
the  high  hills,  where  the  Roman  gods 
were  still  remembered.  These  simple  peo- 
ple Benedict  converted.  Their  temple  to 
Apollo  he  destroyed,  and  on  its  site  he 
began  the  building  of  a  monastery,  which 
became  the  most  famous  and  influential  in 
all  Europe. 

For  the  monks  of  Monte  Cassino,  Bene- 
dict wrote  a  rule  of  life,  which  was  so 
good    that    all    other    monks    adopted    it. 


94  BENEDICT 

Even  to-day,  wherever  there  is  a  monas- 
tery, the  conduct  of  its  life  is  still  gov- 
erned by  St.  Benedict. 

He  found  the  monks,  following  the  ex- 
ample of  the  East,  devoting  themselves  to 
pain  and  prayer,  living  their  own  religious 
life  for  the  good  of  their  own  souls.  Bene- 
dict brought  them  back  to  save  the  world 
which  they  had  abandoned.  He  stopped 
the  old  tortures.  He  forsook  all  that 
starving  and  beating  of  the  body  which 
good  men  had  undertaken  in  the  deserts 
of  the  Nile  in  the  hope  of  improving  their 
souls.  For  pain  he  substituted  work.  The 
fare  of  the  monks  was  to  be  plain  and 
frugal,  but  not  to  the  extent  of  hard- 
ships. Their  work  was  to  be,  in  part  in 
the  field,  cultivating  the  soil,  and  in  part 
in  the  cloister,  reading,  and  studying,  and 
teaching. 

The  influence  of  these  provisions  was 
far-reaching  and  of  vast  importance. 

The   Latins   had   despised   all   labor   of 


BENEDICT  95 

the  hands.  They  had  had  slaves  to  do  that, 
and  it  was  associated  with  slavery.  It 
was  accounted  a  disgrace  for  a  free  man 
to  work.  Benedict  and  his  monks  put  a 
stop  to  that  mischievous  prejudice.  Men 
saw  these  gentlemen  and  saints  planting 
their  fields,  mowing  their  grain,  gathering 
their  fruit.  The  sight  dignified  all  the 
humble  life  of  the  farm.  The  first  thing 
which  the  monks  did  when  they  estab- 
lished a  monastery  in  a  wild  place  was 
to  clear  the  land,  and  they  got  their 
barbarian  neighbors  to  follow  their  ex- 
ample. 

As  for  the  labor  of  the  mind,  the  Goths 
and  Franks  were  unaccustomed  to  it. 
When  they  came  on  their  fierce  invasions 
they  brought  no  books,  and  those  which 
they  found  they  could  not  read.  For  many 
years  they  were  too  busy  fighting,  and  then 
settling,  making  themselves  the  new  mas- 
ters of  the  old  empire,  to  pay  attention  to 
learning.     The    reading   monks   did   that. 


96  BENEDICT 

They  preserved  the  ancient  Latin  books. 
They  saved  Virgil  and  Horace  and  Cicero, 
and  all  the  Latin  classics  from  destruction. 
They  were  the  teachers  of  the  new  genera- 
tions. 

Thus,  when  Benedict  wrote  in  his  rule, 
"Idleness  is  the  enemy  of  the  soul;  and 
therefore  the  brethren  ought  to  employ 
themselves  at  certain  times  in  the  work 
of  the  hands,  and  again  at  certain  times  in 
divine  reading,"  the  words  were  such  as  to 
exercise  an  influence  for  the  good  of  the 
world  greater  than  that  of  all  the  books 
which  had  been  written  since  the  New 
Testament. 

It  is  the  province  and  privilege  of  the 
men  who  come  first  to  clear  the  way  and 
build  foundations.  Thus  Cyprian  was  the 
pioneer  of  the  Church:  he  first  brought 
the  Christian  society  into  its  place  of 
future  importance  in  the  Christian  reli- 
gion. Athanasius  was  the  pioneer  of  the 
creed:    he    first   insisted   on    the    essential 


BENEDICT  97 

importance  of  an  accurate  statement  of 
the  faith,  Ambrose  and  Chrysostom  were 
splendid  examples  of  the  leadership  of 
religion  against  unrighteousness.  Jerome 
gave  Western  Christendom  the  Bible  in 
its  own  language.  Augustine  contributed 
a  system  of  theology,  partly  true  and 
partly  untrue,  which,  for  good  and  evil, 
governed  the  minds  of  men  during  the  suc- 
ceeding centuries.  Benedict  set  in  order 
that  monastic  life  which  carried  religion 
and  civilization  through  the  confusion  of  ] 
the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

Beside  the  monastery  in  which  Benedict 
lived  his  good  life,  his  devout  sister, 
Scholastica  had  a  holy  house,  filled  with 
praying  and  working  women.  The  rules 
which  they  had  made  permitted  the 
brother  and  sister  to  see  each  other  only 
once  a  year.  So  Benedict  came,  one  time, 
in  his  old  age,  to  visit  Scholastica,  and 
when  he  rose  to  go,  she  begged  him  to 
stay  longer,   and  talk  of  heavenly  things. 


98  BENEDICT 

And  when  he  persisted,  feeling  that  he  had 
already  stayed  his  time,  the  sky,  the 
monks  said,  became  black  with  a  great 
storm,  and  the  rain  fell  so  that  he  could 
not  go.    That  was  their  last  visit. 


GREGORY  THE  GREAT 


From  the  painting  by  Justus  van  Ghent,  Barlierini  Palace,  Rome 


GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

540-604 

A  Roman  senator,  rich  and  of  an  an- 
cient family,  was  so  attracted  by  the  Order 
of  St.  Benedict  that  he  built  six  monas- 
teries in  Rome;  and  then  a  seventh,  in 
which  he  went  to  live  himself,  and  be- 
came its  abbot.  His  name  was  Gregory, 
surnamed  "  the  Great." 

One  day  as  the  abbot  walked  about  the 
streets,  he  saw  that  there  were  slaves  for 
sale. 

There  were  always  slaves  for  sale  in 
Rome.  Some  were  men  who  had  got  so 
deep  in  debt  that  they  could  not  get  out, 
and,  having  sold  all  else  which  they  pos- 
sessed, at  last  sold  themselves.  But  most 
of  them  were  captives  from  the  wars.  All 
the  borders  of  the  Roman  Empire  blazed 
with  war.    Even  after  the  barbarians  came 

99 


loo      GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

and  destroyed  the  old  empire,  still  they 
fought  among  themselves.  And  after 
every  battle,  the  victors,  whether  they 
were  Romans  or  Goths  or  Franks,  gathered 
up  a  great  company  of  prisoners  and  sold 
them  in  the  nearest  market.  It  was  better 
than  the  former  custom  of  putting  them 
all  to  death.  And  it  was  better  sometimes 
than  the  modern  custom  of  putting  them 
in  military  jails  without  sufficient  food  or 
shelter. 

The  consequence  was  that  the  slave  trade 
was  a  flourishing  business  in  Rome,  and 
Gregory,  kind-hearted  and  large-minded 
though  he  was,  never  thought  of  trying  to 
stop  it. 

A  new  lot  of  captives  had  come  that  day, 
sent  down  from  Britain.  They  were  of 
the  race  called  Angles,  from  whom  Eng- 
land got  its  first  name  of  Angle-land.  They 
came  from  that  western  part  of  Yorkshire 
which  was  then  called  Deira.  Their  yel- 
low hair  and  fair  skin  pleased  the  eyes  of 


GREGORY  THE  GREAT      loi 

Gregory,  and  he  stopped  to  question  them. 

"  Whence  do  you  come?  "  he  said.  "  We 
are  Angles,"  they  replied,  "  from  the  king- 
dom of  Deira.  "  God  be  gracious  to  you, 
my  children,"  said  the  abbot.  "  You  are 
Angles?  You  are  as  fair  as  angels.  You 
should  be  Christians.  I  will  go  myself  to 
your  land  of  Deira,  and  save  your  people 
de  ira — from  the  ire,  from  the  wrath, — 
of  God." 

Gregory  did  not  go  to  England,  as  he 
hoped,  because  he  was  detained  in  Rome. 
The  pope  died,  and  all  the  people  de- 
manded Gregory,  as  the  Christians  of 
Carthage  had  called  for  Cyprian,  and  the 
Christians  of  Milan  for  Ambrose.  The 
desire  was  unanimous.  The  people  wanted 
him,  the  clergy  wanted  him,  the  senate 
wanted  him.  He  wrote  a  letter  to  the  em- 
peror begging  him  to  forbid  the  election, 
but  somebody  took  the  letter  and  never 
sent  it.  There  was  no  escape.  So  Greg- 
ory  became   the   pope  of   Rome. 


102      GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

One  time,  just  before  Jerome  went  to 
Rome  to  begin  his  classes  in  the  house  of 
Marcella,  there  were  two  men,  each  of 
whom  greatly  desired  to  be  bishop,  and 
their  followers  had  such  a  battle  in  the 
Church  of  Sta.  Maria  Maggiore  that,  when 
it  was  over,  a  hundred  and  thirty-seven 
dead  bodies  lay  upon  the  floor.  It  shows 
not  only  what  a  fierce  and  disorderly  time 
it  was,  but  how  much  men  prized  the 
office.  Gregory,  indeed,  did  not  desire 
it,  but  that  was  because  he  did  not  care  for 
wealth  or  power. 

The  pope  of  Rome  was  bishop  of  the 
greatest  city  in  the  world.  The  Vandals  had 
ruined  Carthage;  Constantinople  and  Alex- 
andria were  far  away.  Rome  had  no 
rival.  It  is  true  that  the  emperor  had 
ceased  to  live  there;  but  his  departure  had 
increased  the  importance  of  the  bishop, 
for  he  was  now  the  leading  citizen.  He 
was  the  most  prominent  and  influential 
Christian   in   the   Western   Church.     The 


GREGORY  THE  GREAT      103 

invading  barbarians  cared  little  for  the 
old  empire,  but  they  had  some  respect 
for  the  Christian  religion.  Gradually,  by 
the  good  services  of  missionaries,  many  of 
them  from  the  monasteries  of  St.  Benedict, 
it  became  their  religion.  It  was  the  only  ^ 
living  survivor  of  the  old  world  which 
they  had  destroyed.  Whatever  of  ancient 
custom  and  culture  and  learning  had  re- 
mained, was  in  the  Church.  The  Church 
was  the  sole  representative  in  all  Europe 
of  that  departed  civilization  which  had 
built  the  great  cities,  made  the  enduring 
roads,  carved  the  statues,  and  written  the 
books.  And  the  leader  and  spokesman  of 
the  Church  was  the  bishop  of  Rome. 

Moreover,  just  about  the  time  when  i 
Gregory  was  questioning  the  Angle  slaves, 
there  was  born  in  Arabia  a  man  who  was 
to  change  the  whole  course  of  the  history 
of  the  Christian  East.  Out  of  Mecca  came 
Mohammed.  To  the  conquest  of  the  west 
of  Christendom  by  the  Goths  and  Vandals, 


I04      GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

was  added  the  conquest  of  the  East  by  the 
Mohammedans.  But  the  Mohammedans 
did  not  become  Christians  like  the  Goths. 
They  came  in  the  strength  of  their  own 
religion,  hating  the  religion  of  the  Chris- 
tains,  and  they  took  possession  of  almost 
the  whole  of  the  Eastern  empire.  They 
captured  Jerusalem.  They  made  them- 
selves masters  of  the  Holy  Land.  They 
took  Alexandria.  They  were  long  delayed 
in  taking  Constantinople,  but  they  de- 
prived it  of  its  ancient  power.  Thus  the 
successors  of  Gregory  became,  not  only  the 
greatest  bishops  in  the  West,  but  the  great- 
est  in   the  world. 

This  was  the  office  which  prevented 
Gregory  from  going  to  England. 

A  great  slab  of  stone  in  the  Forum  at 
Rome  still  shows  the  carved  picture  of  the 
emperor  Trajan  distributing  food  to 
widows  and  orphans.  This  was  the  Trajan 
to  whom  Pliny  wrote  in  112  to  ask  what 
should    be    done    to    stop    the    dangerous 


GREGORY  THE  GREAT      105 

growth  of  the  Christians.  One  day,  as 
Pope  Gregory  passed  that  way,  he  stopped 
in  front  of  the  stone  picture  and  looked  at 
it  with  great  appreciation.  It  seemed  to 
him  a  pleasant  memorial  of  ancient  times 
and  of  a  good  and  friendly  man.  That 
day,  at  prayer,  he  ventured  to  pray  for 
Trajan,  that  he  might  be  pardoned  for 
his  paganism,  and  admitted  into  the 
Christian  heaven.  And  in  a  dream  the 
Lord  appeared  to  the  devout  pope. 
"  Gregory,"  he  said,  "  you  have  prayed 
for  the  pardon  of  a  pagan,  and  I  have 
granted  your  petition;  but  do  not  do  it 
again."  The  story  shows  how  the  theology  ^ 
of  Augustine  had  taken  hold  of  the  minds 
of  men,  who  thus  found  it  possible  to  be- 
lieve that  all  the  heathens,  good  and  bad, 
were  lost.  But  it  reveals  also  the  fellow- 
ship of  Gregory  with  anybody  who  had 
tried  to  help  his  neighbors. 

Gregory's    ministry   was    spent    in    such 
good  deeds.     He  took  a  great  and  useful 


V 


io6      GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

part  in  all  the  life  about  him:  dealt  with 
Arians,  who  were  still  troubling  Italy,  and 
with  Donatists,  who  were  still  troubling 
Africa;  disciplined  idle  and  unworthy 
monks  and  ministers ;  attended  to  the  needs 
of  the  poor  and  the  sick;  and  gave  his 
farmer  careful  directions  about  the  work- 
ing of  his  farm.  He  interested  himself  in 
the  music  of  the  Church,  and  introduced  a 
way  of  chanting  which  bears  his  name, 
and  is  still  in  general  use.  He  added  a 
prayer  to  that  Communion  Service  which 
is  called  the  Mass,  and  thereby  completed 
it  in  the  form  in  which  it  is  said  to-day. 
The  Latin  of  that  service,  as  it  is  used  in 
every  Roman  Catholic  church,  is  substan- 
tially as  it  came  from  the  hands  of  Greg- 
ory. 

Nothing,  however,  that  Gregory  did 
was  of  so  much  importance  to  us  as  his 
sending  of  a  board  of  missionaries  to  con- 
vert the  English. 

The  Christian  Church  had  been  planted 


GREGORY  THE  GREAT      107 

in  Britain  so  early  in  history  that  nobody 
knows  when  or  by  whom:  probably  by 
Christian  soldiers  in  Roman  legions. 
There  it  was,  however,  in  that  land  which 
the  Romans  had  conquered,  and  to  which 
many  wealthy  Romans  loved  to  go  in  the 
cool  summer.  Constantine  had  started 
from  York  on  that  eventful  march  which 
made  him  the  first  Christian  emperor. 
And  when,  presently,  he  called  a  confer-*^ 
ence  of  bishops  to  consider  the  case  of  the 
Donatists,  three  of  the  bishops  came  from 
Britain. 

Then  the  Angles  and  Saxons  invaded 
Britain.  The  Roman  legions  had  been 
called  home  to  defend  Rome,  and  the 
Britons,  who  had  depended  on  their  arms, 
were  without  defense.  They  were  driven 
out  of  their  fair  country,  from  their  pleas- 
ant cities  and  their  churches,  into  the 
mountains  of  Wales.  The  pagan  invaders 
changed  Britain  into  England.  Between 
the  Christian  Britons  and  their  Christian 


io8      GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

brethren  on  the  continent  of  Europe    was 
thrust  this  wedge  of  English  heathenism. 
Gregory  remembered  the  Angle  slaves. 
Out  of  one  of  the  Benedictine  monasteries 
which  he  had  built,  he  chose  a  man  named 
Augustine,  and  sent  him  with  a  band  of 
forty   monks    to    England.     The    mission- 
aries   to    the    English    pagans    went    up 
through     France;     and,     whenever     they 
stopped  to  spend  the  night,  such  terrifying 
tales  were  told  them  of  the  fierce  ways  of 
the  barbarous  English,  that  they  stopped, 
and  sent  a  letter  back  to  Gregory,  asking 
to  be  relieved  from  such  a  dangerous  mis- 
sion.    But  Gregory  urged  them  on. 
V     Thus  in  597, — a  date  to  be  remembered, 
— they  crossed  the  channel,  and  set  their 
feet  upon  the  soil  of  heathen  England.   But 
there  were  friends  to  meet  them.     Bertha, 
the  Queen  of  Ethelbert  of  Kent,  was  al- 
ready a  Christian,  being  a  daughter  of  the 
King  of  the  Franks,  who  had  his  throne  at 
Paris.     She  had  kept  her  religion  in  the 


GREGORY  THE  GREAT      109 

midst  of  the  paganism  of  the  new  coun- 
try, and  had  caused  to  be  rebuilt,  near 
Canterbury,  where  she  lived,  a  little  ruined 
church.  This  she  dedicated  to  the  brave 
memory  of  St.  Martin,  who  had  contended 
so  faithfully  with  the  pagans  of  his  neigh- 
borhood, and  out  to  little  St.  Martin's 
she  was  wont  to  go  to  say  her  Christian 
prayers. 

Ethelbert,  accordingly,  knew  who  the 
Christians  were;  though  he  knew  so  little 
about  them  that  he  preferred  to  meet  the 
missionaries  in  the  open  air,  lest  they 
should  bewitch  him  with  some  spell.  He 
sat,  therefore,  under  a  tree,  and  watched 
Augustine  and  his  men  as  they  approached, 
the  forty  of  them  in  procession,  carrying  a 
banner,  and  singing  a  litany  to  the  music 
which  they  had  been  taught  by  Gregory. 
The  king  listened  gravely  as  Augustine 
preached  the  religion  of  Christ,  and  prom- 
ised to  consider  the  matter  carefully. 
Meanwhile    the    missionaries    were    given 


no      GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

freedom  to  teach,  and  houses  in  Canter- 
bury in  which  to  live,  and,  pretty  soon, 
St.  Martin's  church  in  which  to  worship 
God. 

The  fact  that  the  missionaries  came 
from  Rome,  that  distant  and  renowned 
capital  of  the  world,  emphasized  their 
message;  and  it  was  further  confirmed  by 
their  holy  living.  Thus  one  heathen 
Englishman  after  another  was  converted; 
presently,  the  king  himself;  and  after  the 
king,  following  his  good  example,  ten 
thousand  of  his  subjects  in  one  day. 

Then  Augustine  was  made  a  bishop, — 
the  first  bishop  of  the  English.  Ethelbert 
gave  him  his  own  palace;  and  a  ruined 
British  church  beside  it  became  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Cathedral  of  Canterbury. 
The  Christian  religion  was  thus  intro- 
duced among  our  ancestors,  the  English. 

Gregory  sent  to  Augustine  a  letter  of 
wise  advice.  Do  not  destroy  the  temples 
of  the  English  gods,  he  said;  change  them 


GREGORY  THE  GREAT      in 

into  Christian  churches.  Do  not  forbid 
the  harmless  customs  which  have  been 
associated  with  the  old  religion;  consecrate 
them,  like  the  churches,  to  Christian  uses. 
Let  them  revere  the  saints  where  they  have 
worshiped  idols.  Thus,  he  said,  "  having 
some  outward  joys  continued  to  them,  they 
may  more  easily  accept  the  true  inward 
joys.  For  assuredly  it  is  impossible  to  cut 
away  all  things  at  once  from  minds  hard- 
ened by  evil  custom;  just  as  the  man  who 
strives  to  reach  the  summit  of  perfection, 
climbs  by  steps  and  paces,  not  by  leaps 
and  bounds." 

It  was  in  accordance  with  this  sensible 
advice  that  the  missionaries  called  the  fes- 
tival of  Christ's  resurrection  "  Easter," 
from  Eostre,  the  English  goddess  of  the 
spring.  The  Christmas  season  they  called 
"  Yule-tide,"  from  an  English  god  of  the 
winter;  and  they  still  brought  in  the  yule 
log  from  the  woods,  and  hung  the  mistle- 
toe upon  the  walls,  as  the  ancestors  of  the 


112      GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

English  had  done  in  the  long-gone  days 
before  ever  an  Englishman  had  heard  of 
Christ  or  had  set  his  foot  in  England. 

Thus  Tuesday  kept  the  old  name  of 
Tuesco,  the  god  of  war;  and  Wednesday, 
of  Woden,  the  father  of  the  gods;  and 
Thursday,  of  Thor,  the  god  of  thunder; 
and  Friday,  of  Frigg,  the  goddess  of  love; 
by  the  courtesy  of  Gregory  the  Great. 


COLUMBA 

From  the  statue  by  Gutzon  Borglum,  Cathedral  of 
St.  John  the  Divine,  New  York 


COLUMBA 

521-597 

When  the  news  spread  through  the 
mountains  of  Wales  and  along  the  coasts 
of  Cornwall  that  Roman  Catholics  had 
come  to  convert  the  heathen  English,  the 
British  Christians  sent  messengers  to  meet 
them.  They  held  a  conference  together 
under  an  oak  beside  the  river  Severn. 

The  Britons  looked  upon  their  Roman 

brethren  as  Robinson  Crusoe  looked  upon 

the    English    sailors    who    landed    on    his 

island.     They  had  been  cut  off  from  the 

rest  of  the  civilized  world  for  a  hundred 

and  fifty  years.     Much  of  that  time  had 

been  spent  in  hard  fighting,  and  most  of 

the  fighting  had  ended   in  defeat.     They 

had  been  driven  from  their  ancient  cities 

into    the    wild    hills.      Stories    were    still 

told  of  the  brave  battles  which  their  splen- 

113 


114  COLUMBA 

did  heroes,  the  Knights  of  the  Round 
Table,  had  fought  against  the  invading 
Angles.  But  the  book  in  which  the  stories 
are  collected  is  called  "  The  Death  of 
Arthur."  The  knights  are  vanquished  at 
the  end,  and  the  king  is  killed. 

Two  possessions  the  Britons  had  brought 
down  through  the  long  tragedy  of  the  war, 
their  language  and  their  religion. 

They  still  spoke  that  Celtic  speech  in 
which  their  ancestors  had  shouted  war 
cries  against  Julius  Caesar,  and  which  their 
descendants  speak  to  this  day  in  Wales. 

And  they  still  kept  the  Christian  faith, 
and  prayed  the  Christian  prayers.  It  is 
true  that  they  had  not  attempted  to  con- 
vert the  English,  but  that  was  because 
the  fighting  had  been  so  fierce,  and  their 
sufferings  so  great.  One  of  them,  how- 
ever, a  lad  named  Patrick,  had  been  cap- 
tured by  Irish  pirates  in  411,  the  year 
after  the  withdrawal  of  the  Roman  legions, 
and  had  introduced  the  Christian  religion 


COLUMBA  115 

into  Ireland.  Other  missionaries  of  their 
race,  from  Ireland,  had  introduced  it  into 
Scotland.  There  were  many  British 
bishops.  In  a  monastery  at  Bangor  lived 
as  many  as  two  thousand  monks,  though 
not  one  of  them  had  ever  heard  of  Bene- 
dict or  his  famous  Rule.  One  Briton,  the 
good  heretic  Pelagius,  had  made  such  a 
stir,  even  in  Rome,  that  Augustine  of 
Carthage  had  heard  of  it  in  Africa. 

Thus  the  Britons  who  met  Augustine  of 
Canterbury  represented  the  Christianity, 
not  only  of  Wales  and  Cornwall,  but  of 
Ireland  and  of  Scotland.  Augustine,  how- 
ever, fresh  from  Rome,  regarded  them 
with  that  curiosity  and  superiority  with 
which  people  from  the  city  sometimes  re- 
gard the  inhabitants  of  the  backwoods. 
He  asked  them  various  questions  and  dis- 
covered various  differences  which  had 
naturally  arisen  in  consequence  of  their 
long  separation  from  the  rest  of  the 
Church,    The  most  serious  of  these  differ- 


ii6  COLUMBA 

ences  was  a  mistake  in  the  almanac.  They 
had  lost  count  of  the  date  of  Easter. 
Augustine  required  them  to  correct  these 
errors.  And  they  went  back  to  consult 
their  brethren  in  the  matter. 

On  the  whole,  there  was  a  disposition  to 
yield  these  unimportant  things  and  to 
agree  to  what  the  Romans  asked.  The 
chief  obstacle  was  the  way  in  which 
the  Romans  asked  it.  Their  manner  was 
exceedingly  superior  and  uncivil.  As  the 
Britons  were  on  their  way  to  a  second  con- 
ference, they  asked  the  counsel  of  a  holy 
hermit.  He  said,  "  Watch  Augustine.  If, 
when  you  approach,  he  rises  to  meet  you, 
like  a  gentleman,  do  as  he  requests.  If  he 
remains  seated,  beware  how  you  submit  to 
his  authority."  So  they  came  to  the  place 
of  meeting,  and  there  sat  Augustine,  and 
he  continued  sitting.  Then  they  returned 
to  their  own  place,  and  left  the  Romans 
to  carry  on  their  mission  by  themselves. 
And  Augustine,   having   his   residence   at 


COLUMBA  117 

Canterbury,  went  forward  with  the  con- 
version of  Kent;  and  presently  Paulinus, 
taking  up  his  residence  at  York,  began  the 
conversion  of  Northumbria. 

Now  the  same  year  in  which  Augustine 
came  to  Kent  saw  the  end  of  the  long  and 
useful  life  of  Columba.  He  was  the  pio- 
neer of  the  missions  in  the  North,  as 
Augustine  and  Paulinus  were  the  pioneers 
of  the  missions  in  the  South. 

The  stories  of  the  early  life  of  Columba 
show  that  he  was  very  fond  of  praying,  of 
reading,  and  of  fighting. 

His  Irish  name  was  Colum  of  the  Kil; 
Kil  meaning  cell,  or  church.  Ireland  was 
already  full  of  churches,  and  Colum  was 
famous,  all  the  country  round,  for  the 
frequency  and  enthusiasm  with  which  he 
visited  them. 

The  first  adventure  which  is  remem- 
bered of  him  was  about  a  book.  Of 
course,  in  those  days,  whoever  wanted  a 
book  must  either  buy,  or  borrow,  or  copy 


ii8  COLUMBA 

one.  And  in  Ireland  they  were  very  expert 
in  the  writing  which  preceded  printing, 
with  illuminated  initials  and  a  peculiarly 
intricate  interlacing  of  lines  to  decorate 
the  pages.  So  Colum  of  the  Kil  copied 
a  gospel  book  which  was  the  property  of 
his  neighbor  Finnian,  sitting  up  nights 
to  do  it  after  his  day's  work.  But  when 
the  copy  was  completed  Finnian  claimed 
it  as  his  own.  Finnian  said  that  "  it  was 
to  himself  belonged  the  Son-book  which 
was  written  from  his  book."  They  re- 
ferred the  matter  to  King  Dermot,  and  he 
decided  against  Columba,  saying,  "To 
every  book  belongs  its  Son-book,  as  to 
every  cow  belongs  its  calf." 

According  to  one  account,  it  was  this 
unfair  decision  which  led  to  the  great  fight 
between  Columba  and  the  king,  but  an- 
other story  refers  this  battle  to  the  Feast 
of  Tara.  The  king  lived  at  Tara,  and 
there  he  made  a  feast,  and  minstrels  sang 
to  the  music  of  their  harps,  and  there  was 


COLUMBA  119 

much  eating  and  more  drinking,  and  by- 
and-by  the  guests  fell  so  merrily  to  fight- 
ing that  one  of  them  was  killed.  The 
chief  whose  sword  had  fallen  so  heavily 
on  his  neighbor's  head  fled  from  the  venge- 
ance of  King  Dermot  to  the  protection 
of  Columba,  who  was  already  famous  as 
both  a  saint  and  a  hero.  But  even  there 
the  avenging  king  laid  hands  upon  him, 
and  had  his  head.  Then  it  was  Columba's 
turn  for  vengeance.  He  gathered  together 
all  his  kinsfolk,  the  clan  of  the  northern 
Neills,  and  they  attacked  the  king.  They 
fought  and  Columba  prayed.  It  was  like 
the  cursing  of  Tara,  when  all  the  clergy 
helped  the  chiefs  who  besieged  the  king 
in  his  hall ;  they  rang  their  bells,  and 
chanted  psalms,  and  "  fasted  on  him." 
And  he  lost  the  battle. 

Out  of  this  wild  Ireland,  thus  partly 
Christian  but  partly  savage,  Columba  took 
his  journey  after  these  bloody  doings,  being 
expelled,  some  say,  for  his  share  in  them. 


I20  COLUMBA 

He  set  out  in  a  little  wicker  boat,  with  a 
few  companions,  and  they  sailed  and 
sailed.  Once  they  were  about  to  land 
upon  an  island,  but  when  they  looked  back 
there  was  still  a  glimpse  of  Ireland  on  the 
far  horizon,  and  they  pushed  forward. 
Thus  they  came  at  last  to  the  island  of 
lona. 

lona  is  off  the  west  coast  of  Scotland, 
south  of  Staffa  which  people  visit  to  see 
the  curious  stone  columns  of  Fingal's  cave. 
It  is  a  little  island,  not  much  more  than 
three  miles  wide  at  its  greatest  width. 
There  are  ruins  of  an  old  cathedral,  but 
not  so  old  as  the  days  of  St.  Columba; 
and  there  are  stone  crosses  carved  with  the 
same  complicated  interlacing  of  lines  which 
appears  in  the  ancient  Irish  books.  Only 
two  things  remain  to  recall  the  presence 
of  the  saint:  one  is  the  Gaelic  language, 
akin  to  the  Welsh  of  the  old  Britons,  the 
other  is  the  island  itself,  and  particularly 
a  little  bay  in  the  south  whose  beach  is 


COLUMBA  121 

covered  with  shining  pebbles,  which  the 
sun  and  the  sea  make  to  look  like  precious 
stones.  There  the  little  band  of  exiles 
landed. 

They  built  upon  the  island  some  rude 
shelter  for  themselves,  and  a  place  in 
which  to  worship  God.  Then  they  set 
out  upon  a  series  of  adventurous  voyages 
to  the  mainland.  The  north  of  Scotland 
was  inhabited  by  the  Picts.  Columba  con- 
verted their  king  and  the  people  followed 
his  example.  The  south  of  Scotland  was 
inhabited  by  the  Scots.  They  had  a  new 
king,  whom  Columba  blessed  and  crowned. 
The  king's  rude  palace  was  at  Scone,  and 
some  say  that  the  king  sat  to  be  crowned 
upon  the  rough  stone  which  the  English, 
when  they  conquered  Scotland,  brought  to 
London.  Anyhow,  there  is  the  Stone  of 
Scone  in  the  coronation  chair  of  England, 
to  recall  the  fact  that  the  first  Christian 
king  crowned  in  Great  Britain  was 
crowned  by  St.  Columba. 


122  COLUMBA 

lona  was  the  training  place  of  all  the 
missionaries  who  went  on  their  wild  ad- 
venturous journeys  in  the  North.  By-and- 
by,  men  from  lona  founded  a  mission 
station  on  another  little  island  off  the  east 
coast  of  England,  and  called  it  Lindis- 
farne,  the  Holy  Island. 

There  is  a  glimpse  of  the  labors  of 
Columba  in  the  story  of  another  mission, 
where  a  Christian  preacher  brought  the 
gospel  to  the  Northumbrians,  The  king 
called  a  conference  of  his  great  men,  and 
they  all  listened.  And  one  said,  "  I  have 
been  faithful  to  the  religion  of  our  fathers 
and  it  has  profited  me  nothing.  The  old 
gods  have  made  me  neither  rich  nor  happy. 
I  am  willing  to  make  trial  of  these  new 
ones."  And  another  said,  "  Our  life  is 
like  the  flight  of  a  bird  through  our  lighted 
hall.  In  comes  the  bird  out  of  the  dark, 
flies  about  a  little  while  in  the  smoke  and 
light  of  our  fires  and  torches,  and  then 
goes  out  into  the  dark.     Thus  we  come 


COLUMBA  123 

and  go.  If  these  strangers  can  tell  us  any- 
thing about  these  mysteries  of  birth  and 
death,  let  us  attend  to  their  teaching." 
Thus  converts  were  made.  The  tragedy 
and  the  mystery  of  life  impelled  men  to 
seek  a  better  explanation  of  the  world  than 
their  own  religion  gave. 

The  heart  of  all  this  journeying  and 
preaching  was  Columba.  He  was  a  great 
broad-chested,  stout-armed  person;  "not 
a  gentle  hero,"  an  old  record  says.  He 
loved  to  drive  his  little  boat  into  the  mid- 
dle of  the  fiercest  storms.  His  voice  was 
like  the  bellow  of  a  bull  of  Bashan.  He 
slept  on  the  bare  ground,  and  was  con- 
tented with  rough  fare.  He  carried  his 
corn  on  his  own  back  to  the  mill,  ground 
it,  and  brought  it  home  again.  He 
prayed  and  studied;  and  fought,  too, 
when  there  was  occasion.  His  people 
loved  him. 

One  day,  in  his  old  age,  he  climbed  a 
little  hill  and  looked  out  over  the  humble 


124  COLUMBA 

buildings  of  his  monastery,  and  the  fields 
in  which  his  monks  were  working,  and 
blessed  them  all.  As  he  came  down  and 
sat  to  rest  himself  beside  the  barn,  the  old 
white  work-horse  came  and  laid  his  head 
against  his  breast.  He  had  been  copying 
the  Psalms,  as  at  the  beginning  he  had 
copied  Finnian's  Gospel.  "  They  who 
seek  the  Lord,"  he  wrote,  "  shall  want  no 
manner  of  thing  that  is  good."  It  seemed 
a  fitting  place  to  stop.  He  laid  down  his 
pen.  Late  that  night  he  went  alone  into 
the  little  church,  and  in  the  morning  there 
he  was  found  dead,  kneeling  before  the 
altar. 

In  "  Macbeth,"  when  one  asks,  after  the 
murder  of  the  king,  "  Where  is  Duncan's 
body?  "  the  reply  is 


t( 


Carried      to       Colme-Kill      [Columba's 

Island^, 
The  sacred  storehouse  of  his  predecessors, 
And  guardian  of  their  bones." 


COLUMBA  125 

In  the  little  cemetery  beside  the  church 
they  buried  kings,  from  Ireland,  from 
Scotland,  even  from  Norway,  that  in  the 
Day  of  Judgment  they  might  rise  up  in  the 
good  protecting  company  of  St.  Columba. 


CHARLEMAGNE 

742-814 

The  story  of  the  Knights  of  Arthur 
ends  in  defeat. 

The  king  dreamed  a  strange  and  dread- 
ful dream.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  was 
sitting  in  a  chair,  dressed  in  the  richest 
cloth-of-gold  that  ever  was  made;  and 
under  him  was  "  a  hideous  deep  black 
water,  and  therein  were  all  manner  of 
serpents,  and  worms  and  wild  beasts,  foul 
and  terrible,"  and  suddenly  the  chair 
turned  upside  down,  and  he  fell  among 
the  serpents,  and  ''  every  beast  took  him 
by  a  limb."  It  is  a  picture  of  the  fall 
of  the  Britons  into  the  cruel  power  of 
their  enemies  the  Angles. 

The  story  of  the  Knights  of  Charle- 
magne is  also  a  story  of  defeat. 

The   king   has    been    fighting   with    the 

126 


CHARLEMAGNE 


CHARLEMAGNE  127 

Saracens.  Out  of  Arabia  have  come  those 
wild  soldiers  of  Mohammed  to  invade 
Europe.  They  are  threatening  both  the 
religion  and  the  civilization  of  the  West. 
They  have  destroyed  the  Eastern  empire, 
and  are  now  proceeding  to  take  the  West- 
ern empire  out  of  the  hands  of  its  bar- 
barian conquerors.  Their  purpose  is  to 
make  Arabia  a  world-power,  such  as 
Assyria  and  Chaldea,  and  Greece  and 
Rome  had  been.  They  intend  to  annex 
Europe  to  Arabia,  and  to  make  Rome,  as 
they  had  already  made  Jerusalem,  subject 
to  Mecca.  The  situation  is  like  that  in 
the  days  when  Xerxes  came  with  his  Per- 
sians to  the  conquest  of  Greece,  and  was 
met  by  Leonidas  at  the  Pass  of  Ther- 
mopolae. 

Thus  the  Saracens  are  met  by  Roland 
and  Oliver  at  the  Pass  of  Roncesvalles. 
And,  as  in  the  old  time,  there  is  a  traitor. 
Ganelon,  the  false  knight,  shows  a  way  by 
which  the  men  who  fight  under  the  Cres- 


128  CHARLEMAGNE 

cent  may  have  the  advantage  of  the  men 
who  fight  under  the  Cross.  Charlemagne 
and  the  greater  part  of  the  army  have 
gone  on  ahead,  but  Roland  will  not  sound 
his  horn  to  call  them  back.  He  will  not 
ask  for  help.  "  Please  God  and  His 
Holy  Angels,"  he  cries,  "  France  shall  not 
be  so  shamed  through  me;  better  death 
than  such  dishonor.  The  harder  we  strike, 
the  better  the  emperor  will  love  us."  So 
they  strike,  till  all  the  sides  of  the  moun- 
tains are  filled  with  the  bodies  of  the 
slain.  At  last,  the  leaders  themselves  fall. 
There  is  this  difiference,  however,  be- 
tween the  Death  of  Arthur  and  the  Song 
of  Roland:  the  defeat  of  Arthur  is  the 
end  of  the  story,  but  the  defeat  of  Ro- 
land is  only  an  incident.  Back  comes 
Charlemagne  and  puts  the  Saracens  to 
flight.  It  illustrates  the  contrast  between 
the  Britons,  fighting  their  losing  battles 
against  the  Angles,  and  their  kinsmen 
the  Franks,  fighting  their  winning  battles 


CHARLEMAGNE  129 

against  the  Angles'  kinsmen,   the   Saxons. 

This  was  mainly  due  to  the  might  of 
Charlemagne. 

The  Franks,  over  whom  Charlemagne 
was  king,  were  Christians.  But  their 
Saxon  neighbors,  to  the  north  and  east,  in 
Germany,  were  heathen.  Christian  mis- 
sionaries had,  indeed,  been  busy,  follow- 
ing the  brave  examples  of  Patrick  and 
Columba  and  Augustine,  and  tribe  after 
tribe  had  yielded  to  the  new  religion. 
Boniface,  for  example,  had  come  down 
from  England,  from  the  church  which 
had  been  formed  at  last  by  the  union  of 
the  missions  of  Columba  with  the  mis- 
sions of  Augustine,  and  had  won  the  title 
of  "  Apostle  of  Germany."  But  he  had 
died  a  martyr,  the  pagan  Frisians  attack- 
ing him  in  his  tent  and  putting  him  to 
death.    The  Saxons  were  still  unconverted. 

High  among  the  Saxon  mountains,  in 
the  forests  of  the  Teutoberg,  stood  a  tall, 
mysterious    column    called    the    Irminsul. 


I30  CHARLEMAGNE 

It  was  the  supreme  idol  of  the  Saxons. 
It  looked  down  over  the  valleys  into 
which,  in  the  days  of  Augustine,  the  Sax- 
ons had  enticed  the  legions  under  Varus, 
and  had  destroyed  them.  The  Saxons 
prayed  to  it  before  they  went  to  war.  It 
represented  the  great  god  of  Saxon  Good 
Luck. 

Of  course,  the  Franks  and  Saxons 
fought  continually.  That  was  then  the 
fashion  among  neighbors.  The  Saxons 
made  their  forays  into  the  Prankish  lands, 
and  stole  cattle  and  burned  villages,  and 
the  Franks  returned  their  visits.  But 
more  and  more,  as  the  Franks  increased 
in  civilization  and  in  their  knowledge  of 
religion,  the  war  betvv^een  these  tribes 
became  a  war  between  the  reign  of  law 
and  the  reign  of  disorder,  between  learn- 
ing and  ignorance,  and  between  Chris- 
tianity and  paganism.  It  was  a  new  mis- 
sion. Boniface  had  gone  with  the  gospel, 
helped    and    defended   only   by   his   good 


CHARLEMAGNE  131 

life;  and  when  at  last  the  savage  Frisians 
came  howling  about  his  tent,  he  would  not 
permit  any  of  his  companions  to  strike  a 
blow  against  them.  Charlemagne  came 
with  the  sword. 

The  first  thing  which  he  did  was  to 
destroy  the  Irminsul.  Down  came  the 
sacred  column  crashing  to  the  ground,  and 
it  seemed,  for  the  moment,  as  if  the  reli- 
gion and  the  might  of  the  Saxons  had 
fallen  with  it.  But  fighting  the  Saxons 
was  like  fighting  a  forest  fire.  While 
Charlemagne  was  putting  out  the  flames 
of  war  in  one  place,  they  were  breaking 
out  more  furiously  than  ever  somewhere 
else.  Every  time  he  won  a  battle,  he 
gathered  his  prisoners  together,  the  van- 
quished chiefs  and  the  subdued  people, 
and  marched  them  down  into  the  nearest 
river  and  had  them  all  baptized,  every 
man  of  them.  It  was  a  queer  kind  of 
mission;  and  these  converts  often  went 
back    to    paganism    again    when    Charle- 


132  CHARLEMAGNE 

magne's  back  was  turned,  as  might  have 
been  expected.  But  there  were  priests  and 
bishops  who  went  in  among  the  people, 
dismayed  as  they  were  by  the  failure  of 
their  old  gods  to  protect  them,  and  taught 
them  more  efifectively  the  truths  to  which 
the  sword  had  so  forcibly  called  their  at- 
tention. 

Thus  Charlemagne  became  the  master 
of  all  the  tribes  of  Europe.  All  those 
various  companies  of  barbarians  who  had 
broken  down  the  old  empire  and  settled 
among  the  ruins,  and  the  wilder  tribes 
who  still  lived,  like  the  Saxons,  in  their 
native  forests,  were  forced  by  his  strong 
hand  into  obedience  to  a  single  govern- 
ment. He  had  the  mind  and  the  ambition 
of  Alexander  and  of  Caesar,  and  belongs 
with  them  among  the  masters  of  the 
world. 

So  far  did  the  great  sound  of  his  name 
go,  that  one  time  there  came  to  him  an 
embassy  from  the  distant  East,  from  Bag- 


CHARLEMAGNE  133 

dad,  sent  by  Harun-al-Raschid,  out  of 
the  Arabian  Nights;  to  see  his  court,  as 
the  Queen  of  Sheba  came  to  see  the  glory 
of  Solomon. 

The  eyes  of  the  ambassadors  of  Harun- 
al-Raschid  were  probably  attracted  most 
by  the  armor  of  the  knights  and  the  ranks 
of  the  soldiers,  and  the  stories  which  they 
told  on  their  return  were  mostly  about 
Roland  and  Oliver.  But  the  most  signifi- 
cant persons  at  the  court  of  Charlemagne 
were  schoolmasters  and  clergymen. 

There  had  come  down  from  England, 
from  a  school  at  York,  a  wise  man  named 
Alcuin.  And  when  his  errand  was  ac- 
complished, and  he  was  about  to  return, 
Charlemagne  detained  him.  "  Stay  here," 
he  said,  "  and  teach  us." 

They  needed  him,  that  was  plain 
enough.  The  great  men  were  soldiers, 
who  knew  much  about  war  but  nothing 
about  books.  They  were  aware  in  a  dim 
way   that   a   race   had   preceded   them   in 


134  CHARLEMAGNE 

those  lands  who,  though  they  had  finally 
been  conquered,  had  excelled  their  con- 
querors in  art  and  architecture,  in  science 
and  letters,  in  law  and  order.  They  had 
about  them  continual  reminders  of  that 
old  civilization,  in  the  remains  of  Latin 
roads  and  buildings.  They  felt  them- 
selves in  the  neighborhood  of  a  buried 
treasure  to  which  the  clue  was  lost.  In 
Alcuin,  they  found  the  man  who  had  the 
clue.  He  knew  the  old  history,  and  was 
acquainted  with  the  old  art,  and  was  able 
to  read  the  old  books.  They  became 
his  pupils,  beginning  with  the  emperor 
himself.  And  some  of  those  whom  Alcuin 
taught  established  other  schools,  which 
grew  in  years  to  great  universities. 

These  schoolmasters  were  clergymen. 
Many  of  them  were  monks  of  the  Order 
of  St.  Benedict,  and  all  looked  to  the  Italy 
of  Benedict  and  Gregory,  as  the  Jews  in 
the  old  time  in  exile  when  they  said  their 
prayers  looked  toward  Jerusalem.     There 


CHARLEMAGNE  135 

dwelt  the  bishop  who  was  the  head  of 
all  things  religious  as  the  emperor  was 
the  head  of  all  things  political.  To  the 
clergymen  of  the  court  of  Charlemagne 
there  were  two  great  powers  in  the  world: 
the  power  of  the  sword,  which  was  held 
by  Charlemagne,  and  was  possessed  by 
him  as  the  master  of  the  new  empire  of 
Franks  and  Saxons  and  Goths,  builded  on 
the  ruins  of  the  old;  and  the  power  of 
the  spirit,  which,  as  represented  by  the 
Church,  and  by  the  pope  as  the  ruler  of 
the  Church,  was  bringing  among  these 
new  masters  of  the  world  the  civilization 
and  the  religion  of  the  past. 

But  the  pope  was  beset  by  enemies: 
by  the  Lombards,  who  had  invaded  Italy 
and  seized  lands  there  and  who,  though 
Christians,  were  of  the  Arian  kind;  by 
the  Greeks,  who  still  had  colonies  in  Italy, 
and  whose  allegiance,  like  that  of  the 
pope  himself,  was  to  the  emperor  whose 
throne   was    at   Constantinople.      He   was 


136  CHARLEMAGNE 

still,  in  law,  the  emperor  of  Rome.  Char- 
lemagne came  to  the  assistance  of  the 
pope. 

On  Christmas  Day,  in  the  year  800,  the 
pope  at  that  time  being  Leo  III.,  Char- 
lemagne was  in  Rome,  and  attended  the 
service  in  St.  Peter's  Church.  Suddenly, 
as  he  knelt  before  the  altar,  the  pope 
placed  upon  his  head  a  golden  crown,  and 
pronounced  him  emperor  of  Rome. 

It  meant  that  the  new  time  had  finally 
come.  It  completed  the  barbarian  con- 
quest. It  announced  that  the  old  imperial 
line  was  set  aside,  that  the  West  was  in- 
dependent of  the  East,  and  that  the  true 
successor  of  the  ancient  emperors  was 
Charlemagne  the  Frank.  It  was  the  be- 
ginning of  a  new  order  of  things,  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire. 

In  this  Holy  Roman  Empire  Charle- 
magne was  supreme.  He  ruled  the 
Church  as  he  ruled  the  State.  He  built 
churches    and    monasteries;    he    sent   mis- 


CHARLEMAGNE  137 

sionaries  and  appointed  bishops.  He  ful- 
filled the  proud  words  of  Constantius,  who 
said,  "  What  I  wish  is  a  canon  of  the 
Church,  and  what  I  believe  is  an  article 
of  the  creed."  But  happily,  he  was  as 
wise  as  he  was  strong,  a  good  man,  hon- 
estly intent  on  the  welfare  of  his  people. 
So  he  died,  full  of  years  and  honors,  a  true 
successor,  not  in  name  only,  but  in  char- 
acter and  power,  of  the  great  emperors, 
and,  like  them,  not  emperor  only,  but 
Pontifex  Maximus  also. 

Thus  was  played  the  first  act  in  that 
great  contention  between  the  emperor  and 
the  pope  for  mastery,  which  is  the  tragedy 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  emperor  was 
supreme.  The  hero  of  the  next  act  was 
Hildebrand. 


HILDEBRAND 

1020-1085 

A  NEW  pope  was  on  his  way  to  Rome. 
He  had  been  duly  appointed  by  the  em- 
peror, according  to  the  custom;  and  in 
his  robes  of  office,  with  a  splendid  retinue 
about  him,  he  was  taking  his  great 
journey.  But  on  the  road  he  was  met 
by  a  young  monk.  The  monk  said, 
"  Father,  you  are  not  the  pope  of  Rome. 
You  have  been  appointed  by  the  emperor, 
but  the  pope  must  be  elected  by  the 
Church." 

Thereupon  the  new  pope  put  ofif  his 
robes  of  office,  dismissed  his  retinue  of 
attendant  knights  and  bishops,  and  en- 
tered Rome  dressed  in  the  gown  of  a  pil- 
grim, with  bare  feet.  There  he  was 
greeted  with  enthusiasm  by  the  clergy  and 

the   people   and    they   elected   him   to   be 

138 


HILDEBRAND  139 

their  pope,  according  to  the  ancient  man- 
ner. 

The  monk  who  gave  the  pope  this  good 
advice  was  Hildebrand. 

Hildebrand's  father  was  a  carpenter, 
but  he  had  an  uncle  who  was  a  Roman 
abbot.  With  his  uncle  he  studied,  and 
when  one  of  his  teachers  in  the  abbey  was 
made  pope,  Hildebrand  became  his  chap- 
lain. But  the  popes  of  that  period  were 
short-lived.  Some  of  them  died  of  sick- 
ness, some  of  them  died  of  poison,  some 
of  them  displeased  the  emperor  and  were 
removed  by  him.  Hildebrand's  teacher 
was  removed  by  the  emperor.  Then  the 
chaplain  retired  to  the  great  monastery 
at  Cluny.  And  there  he  was  when  he 
advised  the  new  pope  to  wait  till  he  was 
elected  by  the  Church. 

It  is  plain  that  Hildebrand,  though  he 
was  living  in  a  cloister,  was  attentive  to 
the  affairs  of  the  great  world.  Many 
good  men  at  that  time,  finding  the  world 


I40  HILDEBRAND 

bad,  turned  their  backs  upon  it,  and  tried 
to  forget  it,  except  when  they  said  their 
prayers.  Hildebrand  determined  to 
change  it.  Great  bishops  came  to  Cluny 
as  they  passed  that  way,  and  great  nobles 
with  them.  And  they  all  looked  pretty 
much  alike.  The  bishops  were  rich  and 
powerful,  with  vast  estates,  fond  of  hunt- 
ing, fond  of  eating  and  drinking,  and 
neglectful  of  their  duties.  They  were 
appointed  to  their  places  by  kings  and 
princes,  and  spent  much  of  their  time  in 
courts  and  palaces,  and  the  clergy  under 
them,  having  such  examples  set  for  them 
to  follow,  and  nobody  to  keep  them  in 
order,  fell  into  temptation.  They  cared 
for  money  and  the  comforts  of  life,  rather 
than  for  religion. 

Hildebrand  saw  that  the  situation 
needed  a  strong  hand. 

When  the  new  pope  went  to  Rome  in 
pilgrim's  dress,  Hildebrand  went  with 
him.     He  became  his  chief  adviser.     He 


HILDEBRAND  141 

advised  him  to  assert  himself.  He  urged 
him  to  gather  conferences  of  bishops  for 
the  reformation  of  abuses,  and  to  do  it 
without  asking  the  permission  of  princes. 
The  pope  died,  and  the  Roman  people 
desired  that  Hildebrand  should  succeed 
him.  He  preferred  to  be  the  power  be- 
hind the  pope.  He  secured  the  appoint- 
ment of  Victor;  and  after  Victor,  of 
Stephen;  and  after  Stephen,  of  Nicholas; 
and  after  Nicholas,  of  Alexander.  Thus 
for  twenty-five  years,  he  was  the  real 
pope. 

Finally,  after  the  death  of  Alexander, 
the  whole  city  insisted  that  he  should  be 
pope,  not  only  in  power,  but  in  name. 
They  demanded  Hildebrand,  as  the  people 
in  the  old  days  had  demanded  Cyprian, 
and  Ambrose,  and  Gregory.  It  was  the 
custom  for  one  who  was  elected  pope  to 
take  a  new  name  in  honor  of  his  new 
office.  Hildebrand  remembered  his  old 
schoolmaster,  Gregory  VI.,  whom  he  had 


142  HILDEBRAND 

served  as  chaplain,  and  became  Gregory 
VII. 

Now,  after  long  preparation,  he  was 
ready  to  meet  the  evils  of  the  world  with 
his  own  strong  hand. 

His  plan  was  to  make  the  Church  the 
ruler  of  the  world.  He  took  up  that 
great  fight  against  the  court  which 
Chrysostom,  in  his  time,  had  lost,  and 
Ambrose  had  won. 

First,  he  made  the  clergy  into  soldiers 
of  a  spiritual  army.  He  separated  them 
from  the  world.  This  he  did  by  forbid- 
ding them  to  marry.  They  were  living 
comfortably  with  their  wives  and  chil- 
dren, having  their  interests  partly  in  the 
work  of  the  Church,  and  partly  in  their 
domestic  cares  and  pleasures.  They  wxre 
not  only  priests,  but  husbands  and  fathers 
and  citizens.  Hildebrand  determined 
that  they  should  be  interested  in  nothing 
but  the  Church.  He  broke  up  their 
families,   and   placed   them,   like   soldiers, 


HILDEBRAND  143 

under  the  command  of  their  superiors. 
This  he  was  able  to  do  partly  because  so 
many  of  the  careless  clergy  were  unpopu- 
lar among  their  people,  and  partly  be- 
cause the  monks  had  taught  by  word  and 
by  example  that  the  unmarried  life  is  most 
pleasing  to  God.  The  pope  encouraged 
parishes  to  drive  the  married  ministers  out 
of  the  churches. 

Then,  having  made  the  priests  into  a 
church  army,  he  separated  their  offices 
from  the  influences  of  the  world  by  for- 
bidding the  investiture  of  bishops.  In- 
vestiture w^as  the  act  by  which  a  prince 
permitted  a  bishop  to  take  possession  of 
the  lands  and  property  which  belonged 
to  his  diocese.  The  theory  was  that  the 
prince  owned  all  the  land,  and  that  when 
the  holder  of  an  estate  died  it  came  back 
into  the  prince's  treasury  until  he  was 
pleased  to  give  it  away  again.  Thus  the 
new  bishop  came  humbly  to  the  prince  or 
the  king  and  received  certain  symbols  of 


144  HILDEBRAND 

his  right  to  own  the  church's  property 
under  this  permission.  Indeed,  the  sym- 
bols,— being  the  ring  which  denoted  the 
bishop's  marriage  to  the  Church,  and  the 
pastoral  staff  which  denoted  his  rule  as  a 
shepherd  over  his  people, — appeared  to 
carry  with  them,  not  only  the  right  to  hold 
the  property  of  the  Church,  but  the  right 
to  exercise  the  sacred  office  itself.  That, 
in  fact,  was  the  effect  of  it.  It  made  it 
possible  for  kings  and  princes  to  appoint 
bishops,  and  for  rich  laymen  to  appoint 
ministers  of  parishes,  as  they  pleased. 
Hildebrand  forbade  investiture.  He 
called  a  council  in  Rome  which  decreed 
that  any  clergyman  who  accepted  an  in- 
vestiture should  be  put  out  of  his  office, 
and  that  any  layman  who  gave  an  in- 
vestiture should  be  put  out  of  the 
Church. 

This  forbidding  of  investiture  affected 
every  bishop,  as  the  forbidding  of  mar- 
riage had  affected  every  priest.     The  next 


HILDEBRAND  145 

step  was  to  increase  the  power  of  the  pope. 
The  priests  having  been  made  soldiers, 
and  the  bishops  generals,  the  pope  must 
be  commander-in-chief.  The  pope,  said 
Hildebrand,  is  the  universal  bishop.  He 
may  depose  other  bishops,  if  he  will.  He 
alone  may  make  laws  for  the  Church.  He 
is  to  crown  all  kings  and  emperors,  and,  if 
they  misbehave,  depose  them.  He  may 
absolve  subjects  from  their  allegiance. 
He  is  the  supreme  head  of  all  govern- 
ment, the  king  of  kings  and  lord  of  lords, 
the  ruler  of  the  world. 

Some  of  these  claims  had  been  made 
before.  Gradually,  through  the  confused 
centuries  when  the  old  empire  was  being 
broken  down  and  the  new  empire  was 
being  builded  on  its  ruins,  the  position  of 
the  bishop  of  the  greatest  city  of  the  world 
had  become  more  and  more  important. 
Hildebrand  took  these  theories  and  put 
them  into  action.  The  one  man,  by  the 
might  of   his  strong  will   and   the   power 


146  HILDEBFL\XD 

of  his  blameless  life,  confronted  the  whole 
amazed  and  angry  societ}'  about  him,  de- 
clared with  a  definiteness  which  could  not 
be  mistaken  that  he  was  the  master  of 
all  kingdoms  and  all  churches,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  act  upon  the  declaration. 

Thus  Hildebrand  came  into  collision 
with  the  emperor. 

Henry  IV.,  as  emperor  of  Germany, 
was  the  greatest  sovereign  in  Europe.  He 
was  the  successor,  under  the  new  condi- 
tions, of  the  old  emperors  of  Rome.  He 
was  now  t\vent}'-five  years  of  age.  a  care- 
less prince,  following  his  own  pleasures 
and  misgoverning  the  empire.  Already, 
some  of  his  subjects  had  appealed  to  the 
pope  to  make  him  amend  his  ways.  The 
forbidding  of  investiture  was  met  by  him 
as  the  cutting  oft  of  patronage  is  met  by 
professional  politicians.  It  was  an  advan- 
tage to  him  to  give  away  the  great  places 
of  the  Church,  and  he  proposed  to  con- 
tinue   to   do   it.      He    attacked    the   pope. 


HILDEBRAND  147 

He  got  his  bishops  together  and  they  de- 
clared Hildebrand  deposed.  The  emperor 
called  him  a  false  monk.  He  threatened 
to  put  another  bishop  in  his  place. 

Thus  they  cursed  each  other,  the  em- 
peror and  the  pope;  but  the  pope's  curses 
were  the  more  effective.  The  unpopu- 
larity of  the  emperor  weakened  his  posi- 
tion. When  the  pope  declared  him  ex- 
communicated and  deposed,  and  thus  made 
rebellion  against  him  a  religious  duty,  the 
princes  of  the  empire  found  the  oppor- 
tunity which  they  desired.  They  gladly 
accepted  the  services  of  this  new  ally  in 
their  contention  against  the  emperor  whose 
follies  had  thrown  the  empire  into  dis- 
order. Finding,  accordingly,  that  both 
the  princes  and  the  clergy,  and  with  them 
the  people,  were  against  him,  Henry  sub- 
mitted to  the  pope's  demands. 

"  You  must  come  to  me,"  the  pope 
said,  "  and  ask  pardon  for  your  offenses, 
and  promise  to  do  better.    Otherwise,  you 


148  HILDEBRAND 

shall  be  emperor  no  longer."  And  the 
emperor  came. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  winter,  and  the 
pope  was  at  Canossa,  a  castle  in  the  heights 
of  the  Apennines.  There  the  emperor 
came,  with  his  wife  and  child  and  a 
few  attendants,  bringing  his  crown  in 
his  hand.  For  three  days,  Hildebrand 
kept  him  waiting  outside  his  door,  in  the 
cold  court  of  the  castle,  barefooted  and 
in  the  woolen  shirt  of  a  penitent.  Then 
he  admitted  him;  and  the  great  king,  the 
ruler  of  the  empire,  the  successor  of  Char- 
lemagne, bareheaded  and  barefooted,  pros- 
trated himself  with  tears  before  the  pope. 

This  was  the  second  act  in  the  long 
tragedy  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  pope 
was  now  supreme  over  the  emperor. 

Even  thus,  Henry  gained  only  a  half 
pardon.  He  was  told  that  he  must  be  put 
on  trial,  with  Hildebrand  for  judge;  and 
if  he  was  acquitted  he  must  promise  to 
be  faithfully  obedient  to  the  pope. 


HILDEBRAND  149 

The  effect  of  all  this  on  Henry  was  most 
unexpected.  The  second  act  of  the  trag- 
edy seemed  ended,  when  suddenly  the  sit- 
uation was  reversed.  Henry  went  away 
from  that  humiliation  a  new  man.  As  he 
descended  the  long  mountain  in  the  bitter 
cold,  his  heart  was  hot  within  him.  He 
put  the  follies  of  his  youth  behind  him. 
For  the  first  time,  he  was  a  king  in  earnest. 
He  gathered  troops  about  him.  He  defied 
the  nobles  who  were  in  rebellion.  He 
invaded  Italy.  He  besieged  Rome.  He 
took  the  city.  Hildebrand  held  only  the 
Castle  of  St.  Angelo  against  him,  waiting 
for  the  promised  assistance  of  the  Nor- 
mans. But  when  the  Normans  came,  and 
Henry  retreated,  the  pope  was  like  the 
man  who  prayed  for  rain  and  was  an- 
swered with  a  flood.  The  victors,  the 
pope's  allies,  sacked  the  city;  and,  when 
the  citizens  resisted,  tried  to  burn  it  to 
the  ground. 

In  bitter  grief,  and  amidst  the  indigna- 


150  HILDEBRAND 

tion  of  the  Romans,  the  liberated  pope 
retired  from  the  sight  of  his  ruined  city 
to  Salerno.  And  there,  in  the  midst  of  a 
mighty  tempest,  the  thunder  rolling  and 
the  winds  howling  about  him,  he  died. 
The  great  mastery,  whereby  the  pope  had 
hoped  to  rule  the  world,  punishing  the 
sins  of  princes,  was  lost  almost  before  it 
was  won.  "  I  have  loved  righteousness," 
he  said,  ''  and  hated  iniquity;  therefore  I 
die    in    exile." 


ANSELM 


From  an  old  print 


ANSELM 

1033-1 109 

A  GREAT  fire  broke  out  in  the  town,  as 
the  funeral  procession  of  William  the 
Conqueror  entered  the  gates.  Everybody, 
except  the  attending  clergy,  ran  to  the  fire. 

When,  at  last,  order  was  restored,  and 
the  service  was  begun,  and  the  bishop  who 
preached  ended  his  sermon  with  a  prayer 
for  the  soul  of  William,  and  a  hope  that 
if  any  present  had  been  offended  by  him 
they  would  now  forgive  him,  a  man  arose 
and  forbade  his  burial.  "  The  ground  on 
which  you  stand,"  he  said,  "  was  the  place 
of  my  father's  house,  which  this  man,  for 
whom  you  make  request,  took  away  from 
my  father  by  violence,  and,  utterly  refus- 
ing justice,  he,  by  his  strong  hand, 
founded  this  church.  This  land,  there- 
fore, I  claim,  and  openly  demand  it  back; 

151 


152  ANSELM 

and  in  the  behalf  of  God  I  forbid  the  body 
of  the  spoiler  to  be  covered  with  sod 
that  is  mine,  and  to  be  buried  in  my 
inheritance."  So  they  stopped  the  service, 
examined  the  claim  and  found  it  just,  and 
paid  the  man  his  due. 

Even  then,  at  the  moment  of  entomb- 
ment, the  body  was  found  to  be  too  big 
for  the  coffin,  and  was  burst  asunder  as 
they  forced  it  in. 

William  the  Norman,  who  avenged 
upon  the  English  their  conquest  of  the 
Britons,  had  ruled  England  as  Charle- 
magne ruled  Europe.  He  had  been  su- 
preme. Of  Church  and  State  alike,  he 
had  been  the  head.  At  his  will,  he  had 
made  and  unmade  nobles;  and  at  his 
will,  he  had  appointed  and  dismissed 
bishops.  The  great  pope  Hildebrand,  who 
humbled  the  emperor  at  Canossa,  and  who 
blessed  the  banner  under  which  William 
went  to  the  conquest  of  England,  sent 
a    messenger    to    the    conqueror    to    re- 


ANSELM  153 

ceive  his  promise  of  obedience,  and 
to  collect  money  which  was  due  to 
the  Church  in  Rome.  William  con- 
fessed that  the  money  had  been  carelessly 
collected,  and  said  he  would  do  better. 
But  as  to  the  obedience,  he  refused  to  give 
it.  "  Fealty,"  he  said,  meaning  the  serv- 
ice due  to  a  superior,  "  fealty  I  neither 
have  been  willing  to  do,  nor  will  I  do  it 
now,  for  I  never  promised  it;  and  I  find 
not  that  my  predecessors  did  it  to  yours." 

It  was  a  clear  statement  of  one  side  of 
that  tremendous  contention  between  the 
Church  and  the  court  in  which  Charle- 
magne and  Hildebrand  played  their  great 
parts.  There  was  a  man,  however,  at 
William's  dreadful  funeral  who  was  to 
give  an  equally  clear  statement  of  the 
other  side  of  the  contention,  asserting,  like 
Hildebrand,  the  supremacy  of  the  Church. 
This  man  was  Anselm. 

Anselm  was  a  native  of  Italy.  He  had 
wandered  up  into  the  north  of  France,  and 


154  ANSELM 

in  a  day  vv^hen  most  men  of  an  earnest  or 
adventurous  spirit  were  either  monks  or 
soldiers,  he  had  become  a  monk.  The 
monastery  of  Bee  had  been  to  him  a  place, 
not  only  of  religion,  but  of  education. 
The  prior,  Lanfranc,  was  the  greatest 
schoolmaster  of  his  time.  Anselm  was 
his  greatest  pupil.  In  the  wholesome 
quiet  of  the  place,  beside  the  stream  which 
ran  through  the  wild  woods,  Anselm  began 
to  think. 

Thinking  was  at  that  time  a  disused 
art.  Of  course,  there  was  a  plenty  of  the 
kind  of  thought  which  goes  along  with 
the  planning  of  campaigns  and  with  the 
administration  of  affairs.  No  man  can 
rule  as  Charlemagne  and  William  did 
without  being  a  master  of  the  art  of 
making  decisions.  But  of  the  persistent 
study  which  pursues  truth  for  the  joy  of 
pursuing  it,  and  is  intent  on  discovering 
the  meaning  of  things,  there  had  been  little 
since    Augustine.      The    main    work    of 


ANSELM  155 

scholars,  in  that  difficult  time  when  the 
old  empire  was  going  to  pieces  and  the 
new  empire  was  being  built  upon  its 
ruins,  was  to  keep  the  ancient  learning 
safe.  Men  were  busy  copying  the  classic 
and  Christian  books  of  the  old  time,  and 
teaching  them  to  a  new  generation.  The 
new  generation,  in  its  turn,  having  been 
brought  out  of  ignorance  by  wise  men 
whose  knowledge  in  those  times  seemed 
almost  supernatural,  had  grown  up  in  the 
habit  of  intellectual  submission.  The 
thing  to  do  vv^as  to  take  what  the  ancients 
had  said,  and  accept  it  respectfully.  It 
was  true  because  they  said  it. 

Anselm  was  profoundly  respectful  to 
the  ancients,  but  his  mind  was  not  satis- 
fied. He  was  not  content  to  believe  in 
God  because  Augustine  had  believed,  or 
even  because  St.  Paul  and  St.  John  had 
believed.  In  the  quiet  of  the  peaceful 
abbey,  he  set  himself  to  establish  the 
truth  of  the  existence  of  God  on  the  basis 


156  ANSELM 

of  human  reason.  He  took  his  arguments 
from  the  world  outside,  and  from  the 
world  within.  In  the  universal  idea  of 
God  he  found  a  reason  for  belief  in 
God.  The  matter  is  of  importance  be- 
cause it  was  the  beginning  of  philosophy 
and  science  in  the  new  era. 

Then  William  took  Lanfranc  to  be 
archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  his  coun- 
selor and  right  hand  in  his  new  domains. 
Anselm  became  at  first  prior,  and  then 
abbot  of  Bee.  He  was  as  original  in  the 
spirit  of  his  discipline  as  in  the  manner 
of  his  thought.  Almost  all  of  the  schools 
of  the  time  were  in  the  monasteries,  and 
in  almost  every  monastery  the  boys  were 
taught  with  the  book  before  them  and  the 
birch  behind  them.  They  were  beaten, 
as  a  matter  of  course.  At  the  universities, 
when  young  men  came  up  for  the  degree 
of  bachelor  of  arts,  they  were  examined, 
not  only  as  to  the  progress  of  their  studies, 
but   as    to    their   ability   to   ply   the    rod. 


ANSELM  157 

Nobody  was  qualified  to  teach  who  did 
not  know  how  to  punish.  But  to  an  abbot 
who  complained  of  the  dullness  of  his 
pupils  Anselm  replied  that  they  were  made 
dull  by  the  method  of  their  education. 
"  Day  and  night,"  said  the  discouraged 
abbot,  "  we  do  not  cease  beating  them, 
and  they  only  get  worse."  "  It  is  a  way 
to  turn  men  into  beasts,"  said  Anselm. 
*'  It  is  like  taking  a  tree  and  tying  back 
all  its  branches,  and  then  expecting  fruit. 
Be  patient,  be  kind,  be  sympathetic." 

It  was  remembered  how  gentle  Anselm 
was;  how  he  ministered  to  the  sick,  to 
whom  food  from  his  hand  had  a  better 
taste;  and  how  once,  in  England,  a  hunted 
hare  sought  refuge  under  his  house,  and 
he  had  the  hounds  held  from  hurting  it. 

Suddenly,  this  gentle  scholar  was  taken 
away  from  the  quiet  of  his  books  into  the 
midst  of  the  fierce  contentions  of  public 
life.  He  was  made  archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury. 


158  ANSELM 

That  great  place  had  been  vacant  for 
four  years.     Lanfranc  had  died.     William 
had  died.     William  Rufus,  his  successor, 
had    refused    to    make    an    appointment. 
William  Rufus  had  discovered  a  new  way 
to  make  money.     The  Church  in  England 
had  grown  rich.     Sometimes  out  of  grati- 
tude for  the  blessings  of  God,  sometimes 
out  of   interest  in   religion   and   desire   to 
strengthen  the  hands  of  good  men,  some- 
times in  the  belief  that  treasure  given  to 
the  Church  on  earth  would  be  credited  as 
treasure   in    heaven,    the    great   bishoprics 
and  the  great  monasteries  had  been  given 
splendid    gifts    of    lands    and    buildings. 
But    the    conquests    of    Charlemagne    in 
Europe  and  of  William  in  England  had 
established   the   theory  that  all   the   lands 
and  buildings  of  the  country  belonged  to 
the  sovereign.     He  had  acquired  them  by 
driving  out  their  rightful  owners,  and  had 
given   them   away  as   he   pleased,   and   he 
claimed    the    right    to    take    them    back. 


ANSELM  159 

When  the  new  possessor  misbehaved  so 
that  the  king  was  angry,  he  was  put  out 
as  suddenly  as  he  had  come  in.  This 
idea  that  the  country  belonged  to  the  king 
was  extended  by  William  Rufus  to  in- 
clude the  property  of  the  Church.  And 
it  occurred  to  him  that  when  for  the 
moment  there  was  no  bishop  or  no  abbot 
to  receive  the  rents,  he  was  himself  the 
proper  person  to  receive  them.  This 
pleasant  proposition  he  applied  whenever 
a  rich  place  fell  vacant.  For  four  years, 
accordingly,  he  had  refused  to  appoint  an 
archbishop  of  Canterbury,  in  order  to  take 
for  his  own  uses  the  income  of  that 
see. 

But  William  Rufus  fell  seriously  ill. 
It  looked  as  if  he  was  at  the  point  to 
die.  And  he  began  to  think  about  his 
sins.  They  were  many  in  number,  for 
he  had  been  a  cruel  king  like  his  father, 
without  his  father's  virtues.  He  had  done 
all  manner  of  injustice.     His  prisons  were 


i6o  ANSELM 

full  of  the  victims  of  his  personal  displeas- 
ure. And  the  stolen  archbishopric  was  still 
in  his  possession.  Among  other  prepara- 
tions for  a  penitent  death,  he  agreed  to 
give  that  up.  He  would  appoint  an  arch- 
bishop. 

The  fame  of  Anselm  was  already  in 
England,  and  he  himself  was  at  that  mo- 
ment in  the  country.  It  was  plain  to  all 
good  people,  and  to  the  king,  that  he 
was  the  man  for  the  place.  But  Anselm 
was  unwilling,  partly  from  distrust  of  his 
own  strength,  partly  from  reluctance,  to 
leave  his  quiet  prayers  and  studies.  They 
forced  him  to  it.  They  brought  him  by 
main  strength  to  the  sick  room  of  the  king. 
They  took  the  pastoral  staff,  the  symbol 
of  that  investiture  against  which  Hilde- 
brand  had  contended,  and  tried  to  thrust 
it  into  his  closed  hand.  There  was  no 
escape.  Only  by  his  acceptance  could  the 
long  injustice  and  subjection  of  the 
Church  be  ended. 


ANSELM  i6i 

Thus  he  became  archbishop.    And  then 
the  king  recovered! 

Immediately  there  arose,  between  Rufus 

and  Ansehn,  the  inevitable  debate  of  that 

age,   the   question  of   mastery.     Shall   the 

Church  obey  the  king?  or  shall  the  king 

obey    the    Church?      It    turned    upon    a 

curious  detail.     It  was  the  custom  for  an 

archbishop  to  add  to  his  appointment  by 

the    king    a    confirmation    by    the    Roman 

pope.      For   this   purpose   he   must   go    to 

Rome  and  there  receive  a  small  stole  of 

white    wool,    marked    with    four    crosses, 

called  a  pallium.     But  when  Anselm  was 

appointed,    there    were    two    popes,    each 

claiming  to  be  the  true  one;  and  England 

had    not    yet    officially    decided    between 

them.     When,  therefore,  Anselm  came  to 

Rufus    and    asked    permission    to    go    to 

Rome  to  receive  the  pope's  pallium,  Rufus 

said,    "  To    which    pope    will    you    go? " 

Anselm  answered,  "To  pope  Urban."    "  I 

have  not  acknowledged  Urban,"  said  the 


i62  ANSELM 

king,  "  That  is  my  matter.  By  my  cus- 
toms, by  the  customs  of  my  father,  no  man 
may  acknowledge  a  pope  in  England  with- 
out my  leave.  To  challenge  my  power  in 
this  is  as  much  as  to  deprive  me  of  my 
crown." 

Thus  the  fight  began.  It  was  a  clear 
question  of  authority.  Is  the  Church  in- 
dependent of  the  king,  or  not? 

On  the  side  of  Anselm  was  the  idea  of 
the  Church  as  the  representative  of  right- 
eousness and  law.  He  felt  that  to  sur- 
render was  to  expose  religion  to  all  the 
disorder  and  violence  of  a  rude  age,  and  to 
invite  again  such  robbery  as  had  already 
been  committed  by  the  king.  To  his  mind, 
the  supremacy  of  the  pope  over  the  afifairs 
of  England  was  like  what  we  mean  by  the 
supremacy  of  the  Hague  Tribunal.  It 
was  an  exaltation  of  justice  and  security 
over  brute  strength. 

On  the  side  of  Rufus  was  the  idea  of  the 
independence    of    the    State.      Hard    and 


ANSELM  163 

rough  as  he  was,  it  was  plain  to  him  that 
the  land  must  have  one  sovereign.  He 
could  not  share  either  his  responsibility  or 
his  power  with  any  man,  however  excel- 
lent, living  in  Rome.  He  could  not  sub- 
mit his  judgments  to  any  foreign  revision. 
He  must  be  king  in  his  own  land. 

Anselm  was  patient  and  gentle,  but 
very  determined.  A  council  debated  the 
matter,  but  during  the  excited  debates  he 
was  often  seen  resting  his  head  against  a 
pillar  placidly  asleep,  and  when  he  waked 
he  was  still  of  the  same  mind.  The  king 
contrived  to  get  the  pallium  sent  from 
Rome  by  Urban,  but  Anselm  would  not 
take  it  from  the  king's  hands.  It  was 
laid  on  the  altar  at  Westminster,  whence 
Anselm  took  it  himself.  But,  after  all, 
he  insisted  on  going  to  Rome,  and  went. 
Rufus  at  once  took  possession  again  of 
the  revenues  of  Canterbury,  and  the  wise 
pope,  while  he  received  Anselm  with  great 
honor,  declined  to  involve  himself  in  the 


i64  ANSELM 

dispute.  The  archbishop  retired  to  a  lit- 
tle hill-town  in  Italy,  and,  with  great  joy, 
resumed  the  simple  life  of  study  and 
prayer  which  his  great  office  had  inter- 
rupted. He  wrote  a  book  in  which  he 
discussed  the  problems  of  theology  with 
even  greater  boldness  and  originality  than 
before. 

Then  the  news  came  one  day  that 
William  Rufus  had  been  killed  with  an 
arrow  in  the  New  Forest,  and  Anselm 
returned  to  his  duties.  He  returned  to 
contend  with  Henry  as  he  had  contended 
with  Rufus,  to  go  again  with  his  appeal 
to  Rome  and  to  be  met,  as  before,  with 
much  respect  and  little  aid,  but  eventually 
to  conquer  Henry.  The  archbishop 
threatened  to  excommunicate  the  king,  as 
the  pope  in  Hildebrand's  time  had  ex- 
communicated the  emperor,  and  the  king 
yielded.  The  times  were  difficult:  Robert 
was  making  threats  from  Normandy;  the 
allegiance  of  many  great  nobles  was  very 


ANSELM  165 

doubtful;  the  king  did  not  venture  to  con- 
tinue the  dispute.  He  yielded.  He 
agreed  to  surrender  the  right  of  the  royal 
investitures  of  bishops  with  the  ring  and 
staff.  They  were  no  longer  "  his  men," 
as  the  phrase  ran.  They  were  responsible 
to  their  own  master,  the  pope  in  Rome. 
The  date  of  this  victory  of  Anselm — 1107 
— is  worth  remembering.  It  was  the 
definite  beginning  of  that  papal  supremacy 
in  England  which  continued  until  it  was 
as  definitely  abolished,  in  1534,  by  Henry 

vni. 


BERNARD 
1091-1153 

The  great  abbey  of  Cluny  was  rich 
enough  to  entertain  a  king.  All  the  nobles, 
all  the  knights  and  squires,  all  the  men- 
at-arms  of  a  royal  retinue  could  sleep 
beneath  its  hospitable  roof,  feast  in  its 
noble  halls,  and  pray  in  its  lofty  chapel. 
Next  to  Monte  Cassino,  which  Benedict 
had  founded,  it  was  the  most  magnificent 
religious  house  in  Europe. 

There    were    men,    however,    to    whom 

this  splendor  of  the  abbey  was  its  shame. 

They  compared  the  architecture  of  Monte 

Cassino  with  that  cave  in  the  cliff  where 

Benedict  had  begun  to  live  his  holy  life. 

They   remembered   that   Cluny   had   been 

established  by  devout  monks  who  disliked 

the  luxury  of  the  Benedictines,  and  wished 

to  return  to  the  simplicity  and  severity  of 

166 


VIRGIN   AND    ST.  BERNARD 

From  the  painting  by  Filippino  Lippi,  Badia,  Florence 


BERNARD  167 

the  ancient  rule.  They  determined  to  re- 
peat that  good  endeavor,  and  do  it  better. 
One  of  them  retreated,  accordingly,  to  a 
solitary  place  in  a  forest  whose  Latin  name 
was  Cistercium,  and  there  entered  into  the 
hardships  which  his  soul  desired.  He 
lived  like  a  soldier  between  battles.  He 
kept  watch  as  one  who  expects  an 
enemy.  He  maintained  a  daily  drill  of 
the  spirit.  He  contended  against  the 
devil. 

But  for  a  long  time  only  a  few  went 
with  him.  When  he  died,  his  little  mon- 
astery was  the  humblest  and  poorest  in 
France.  His  successor  grew  discouraged. 
It  seemed  as  if  the  good  days  of  the  strict 
life  were  passed,  and  as  if  there  were  no 
longer  any  who  cared  to  keep  the  rule 
which,  to  the  saints,  had  been  a  way  to 
heaven,  steep  but  sure.  At  last,  one  day, 
there  came  in  through  the  forest  a  com- 
pany of  twenty-five  or  thirty  men.  They 
stopped   at  the   door  of   Cistercium,   and 


i68  BERNARD 

asked  to  be  admitted.    They  desired  to  be 
Cistercians. 

The  leader  of  this  group  was  a  tall 
youth,  with  yellow  hair  and  reddish  beard, 
whose  name  was  Bernard.  In  the  com- 
pany were  his  four  brothers,  and  the  rest 
of  the  number  were  his  relatives  and 
friends.  He  had  persuaded  them  to  leave 
the  world,  and  to  undertake  the  monastic 
life  in  earnest.  He  had  inspired  them 
with  his  own  ideals.  To  these  recruits, 
Bernard  added  others.  He  had  the  per- 
suasive eloquence  of  one  who  has  found 
the  supreme  joy  of  life  and  wishes  to  im- 
part it  to  his  neighbors.  Nobody  ever 
lived  who  took  more  real  delight  in  going 
without  food  and  sleep  that  he  might  say 
his  prayers  and  strengthen  his  soul;  and 
such  was  the  enthusiasm  with  which  he 
described  the  charm  of  the  monastic  life 
that  mothers  hid  their  sons  when  Bernard 
came  into  their  neighborhood,  to  keep 
them  from  hearing  his  convincing  words. 


-^    BERNARD  169 

He  appealed  to  the  best  hopes  of  high- 
minded  young  men,  who  were  looking  for 
a  life  of  romance  and  adventure.  They 
would  find  it,  he  said,  in  the  abbey  of 
Cistercium. 

Pretty  soon  the  little  monastery  was  so 
crowded  that  they  began  to  send  out 
colonies.  One  colony,  of  which  Bernard 
was  the  leader,  went  through  the  forests  a 
hundred  miles  to  a  wild  valley  which  a 
knight  had  given  to  the  monks  out  of  his 
estate.  The  valley  was  filled  with  thick 
woods,  through  which  ran  a  little  river. 
The  hills  came  near  together  at  the  west, 
and  there  they  settled,  building  a  rude 
house.  Before  them  to  the  east  lay  the 
widening  valley,  eight  miles  long.  Year 
by  year,  cutting  down  trees,  draining 
marshes,  clearing  land  for  gardens  and 
pastures,  planting  vines  on  the  hills  on 
one  side  and  orchards  on  the  hills  on  the 
other  side,  digging  a  pond  for  fish,  build- 
ing, not  only  a  chapel,  but  a  mill,  they 


lyo  BERNARD 

civilized  the  place,  and  made  Clairvaux, — 
for  that  was  the  name  of  it, — one  of  the 
fairest  habitations  in  the  world.  Nobody 
left  it  without  longing  to  return. 

This  was  not  done,  however,  without 
great  labor  and  privation.  There  was  a 
"  starving  time  "  at  Clairvaux,  as  there  was 
afterwards  at  Jamestown  and  Plymouth. 
It  is  a  part  of  the  adventures  of  colonists. 
Depending  wholly  on  themselves,  and  be- 
ginning too  late  in  the  season  to  get  food 
out  of  the  earth,  they  lived  during  the 
first  winter  on  beechnuts.  But  they  liked 
it.  Bernard  delighted  in  it.  Even  when 
better  times  came,  and  they  had  good  crops 
and  good  fruits,  he  kept  to  a  fare  so  sim- 
ple that  he  was  in  danger  of  starvation. 
He  lost  all  sense  of  taste,  and  perceived 
no  difiference  between  wine  and  oil.  Hap- 
pily, a  good  doctor  took  him  in  charge, 
and  saved  his  life,  though  he  was  too 
late  to  save  his  health. 
Bernard  was  absolutely  unselfish.     He 


BERNARD  lyr 

had  no  plans  for  personal  advantage.  He 
desired  nothing,  neither  money,  nor  com- 
fort, nor  power,  nor  reputation.  Nobody 
could  rob  him.  Nobody  could  influence 
his  thought  or  act  by  any  threat  or  prom- 
ise. In  those  days  when  every  knight 
was  fighting  to  increase  his  possessions, 
and  almost  every  abbot, — as  at  Monte 
Cassino  and  Cluny, — was  trying  to  widen 
his  lands  and  erect  new  buildings  and  was 
in  search  of  more  money  for  these  pur- 
poses, the  appearance  of  Bernard  was  an 
extraordinary  fact.  He  was  the  most  in- 
dependent man  of  his  time;  and  he  became 
the  most  influential.  Selfish  as  men  were, 
they  were  still  able  to  appreciate  unself- 
ishness. They  saw  the  value  of  the  opin- 
ion and  judgment  of  a  man  whose  mind 
was  not  affected  by  any  consideration  other 
than  the  will  of  God,  as  he  understood  it. 
The  result  was  that  during  the  life- 
time of  Bernard  the  spiritual  capital  of 
Europe  was  at  Clairvaux.    Of  course,  the 


172  BERNARD 

monastery  grew  tremendously.  Bernard 
saw  sixty-five  colonies  go  out  to  found 
new  abbeys.  But  the  glory  and  the  might 
of  it  all  was  the  personality  of  this  humble, 
modest,  and  self-sacrificing  man.  That 
which  Hildebrand  at  Rome,  and  Anselm 
at  Canterbury,  had  claimed  by  right  of 
office,  came  to  Bernard  without  office 
and  without  claim,  because  of  the  right- 
eousness of  his  life  and  the  purity  of  his 
soul.  He  was  called  to  kings'  courts,  and 
was  given  the  final  decision  of  questions 
on  which  the  peace  of  Europe  depended. 
But  he  declined  all  offers  of  high  position, 
and  went  back  from  these  great  errands  to 
take  his  place  again  at  Clairvaux,  working 
in  the  fields  like  Columba,  feeding  the 
pigs,   greasing  his  own  boots. 

One  time,  a  French  duke,  grandfather 
of  Richard-of-the-Lion-Heart,  rich  as  a 
great  king,  vicious  in  life  and  uncontrolled 
in  temper,  took  his  part  in  the  continual 
fight  between  the  Church  and  the  world, 


BERNARD  173 

by  removing  certain  good  bishops  and 
putting  bad  ones  in  their  places.  To  the 
demand  of  the  pope  that  he  should  restore 
the  faithful  bishops,  he  returned  a  stout 
defiance.  Nobody  could  do  anything 
with  him.  Everybody  was  afraid  of  him. 
Bernard  came  from  Clairvaux,  weak  in 
body,  unattended  by  any  physical  force, 
and  met  the  duke  at  a  church  door,  and 
scared  him  into  a  fit.  The  man  fell  upon 
the  ground  and  foamed  at  the  mouth. 
''  Here,"  said  Bernard,  "  is  one  of  the 
bishops  whom  you  have  deposed.  Take 
him  back  to  his  place;  and  do  the  same 
with  all  the  others."  And  the  duke 
obeyed. 

Another  time,  Bernard  met  upon  the 
road  a  group  of  men  in  the  midst  of  whom 
was  one  with  a  halter  about  his  neck, 
being  led  to  be  hanged  for  robbery  and 
murder.  The  abbot  asked  for  the  man, 
led  him  gently  to  Clairvaux,  dressed  him 
in  the  garments  of  a  monk,  placed  him  in 


174  BERNARD 

the  quiet  company  of   the  brethren,   and 
saved  him,  body  and  soul. 

It  happened,  in  Bernard's  time,  that  the 
whole  Church  was  again  divided  by  the 
contention  of  two  men,  each  of  whom 
claimed  to  be  the  truly  elected  pope.  The 
election  had  been  a  scene  of  disorder. 
Hildebrand  had  put  an  end  to  the  old 
method  whereby  the  pope  had  been 
elected  at  a  Roman  town-meeting,  and  had 
confined  the  voting  to  certain  rectors  of 
Roman  parishes,  and  bishops  of  neighbor- 
ing dioceses,  called  cardinals.  But  on  this 
occasion  some  of  the  cardinals  had  elected 
Anacletus,  and  others  had  elected  Inno- 
cent. Each  claimed  that  the  other  meeting 
was  illegal.  The  fine  theory  of  Anselm 
that  the  pope  is  the  representative  of  law 
and  order  was  imperiled  by  this  situation. 
The  two  claimants  were  fighting  vigor- 
ously; Anacletus  had  driven  Innocent  out 
of  Italy;  the  voice  of  law  and  order  must 
be  sought  elsewhere. 


BERNARD  175 

The  king  of  France  called  an  assembly 
of  bishops  and  abbots  to  consider  this  great 
matter.  And  the  king  and  the  assembly 
summoned  Bernard.  He  was  made  arbiter 
of  the  rival  claims.  The  whole  nation,  and 
other  nations,  awaited  his  decision.  He 
examined  the  conditions  of  the  election 
but,  still  more  carefully,  the  character  of 
the  men.  He  set  aside  the  legal  details, 
and  chose  for  pope  the  claimant  who 
seemed  to  him  the  better  man.  He  se- 
lected Innocent.  That  choice  determined 
France,  and  further  appeals  of  Bernard 
determined  Germany  and  England.  Inno- 
cent became  pope. 

The  new  pope  visited  Clairvaux  and 
was  there  welcomed,  so  the  old  chronicle 
says,  "  not  by  banquets  but  by  virtues." 
He  found  a  church  with  bare  walls,  no 
pictures,  no  stained  glass;  an  altar  with 
iron  candlesticks  and  a  silver  chalice; 
priests  in  linen  vestments,  singing  the  serv- 
ice with   the   utmost  simplicity;   and   the 


176  BERNARD 

rule  so  carefully  kept  in  the  refecton*  that 
beans  aiid  pease  were  the  chief  food  on 
the  table,  there  was  no  wine,  and  the  only 
fish  which  appeared  was  sensed  as  a  spe- 
cial daint}^  to  the  pope.  Afterwards, 
when  another  pope,  one  of  the  old  pupils 
of  Bernard,  came  to  visit  him,  they  gave 
him  the  only  fowl  which  they  had  in  the 
pantrv.  These  glimpses  show  at  its  best 
that  Cistercian  revival  of  the  monastic 
life  which  links  the  name  of  Bernard  with 
that  of  Benedict.  What  it  came  to,  in  its 
turn,  appears  in  ''  Ivanhoe "  in  the  per- 
son of  the  Cistercian  prior  Aymer. 

After  the  settlement  of  the  contention  of 
the  rival  popes,  the  next  event  which 
stirred  the  heart  of  Christendom  was  the 
second  Crusade. 

Peter  the  Hermit  had  preached  the  first 
Crusade  at  the  Council  of  Clermont,  when 
Bernard  was  but  four  years  old.  He 
must  have  remembered  from  his  childhood 
the  vast  movement  of  that  armv  in  which 


BERNARD  177 

all  the  strength  of  Europe  seemed  to  be 
enlisted;  and  the  stories  of  his  youth  must 
have  been  tales  which  were  told  by  knights 
and  palmers  after  that  ill-fated  expedi- 
tion. 

The  first  Crusade  had  succeeded  in  tak- 
ing Jerusalem  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
Turks.  It  had  established  Christian  gar- 
risons in  Antioch  and  Edessa.  In  the 
midst  of  horrible  suffering,  avenged  by 
cruelty  as  horrible,  and  in  spite  of  all 
manner  of  contradiction  of  the  most  im- 
portant principles  of  Christian  living,  the 
Crusade  had  assisted  to  civilize  Europe. 
It  had  called  the  various  nations  together 
for  a  common  purpose;  it  had  widened 
their  experience  of  the  world;  and  it  had 
brought  back  into  the  still  savage  social 
life  of  the  West  some  of  the  refinement 
of  the  East. 

But  now  news  came  of  the  capture  of 
Edessa.  That  Christian  stronghold  had 
fallen  before  the  might  of  the  Turks,  and 


178  BERNARD 

its  loss  was  a  prophecy  of  the  taking  of 
Jerusalem.  The  Holy  City,  won  by  the 
shedding  of  the  best  blood  of  Europe,  was 
in  peril.  It  was  time  for  a  second  crusade. 
So  thought  Louis  VIII.  of  France,  who 
had  just  come  back  sick  at  heart  and 
stricken  in  conscience  from  a  little  war  in 
which  he  had  burned  alive  a  thousand 
people  in  a  church.  So  thought  the 
Knights  Templars  vowed  to  the  defense 
of  the  Holy  Sepulcher,  and  eager  for  mar- 
tial exercise.  So  thought  the  pope,  and 
Bernard. 

Bernard  was  to  the  second  Crusade  what 
Peter  the  Hermit  had  been  to  the  first. 
He  was  its  preacher.  Mounted  on  a 
wooden  pulpit,  facing  a  vast  multitude 
under  the  open  sky,  slight  in  figure,  but 
strong  in  voice,  and  terrible  in  his  mighty 
earnestness,  he  called  for  volunteers  to 
fight,  as  he  said,  for  Christ.  And  again, 
as  at  the  beginning,  there  was  a  tearing 
of  red  cloaks  for  badges,  Bernard  setting 


BERNARD  179 

the  example.  Again,  all  over  Europe, 
men  were  taking  the  Cross.  Women  were 
sending  spinning-wheels  to  knights  who 
were  too  timid  or  too  sensible  to  go,  sug- 
gesting that  these  were  more  to  their  taste 
than  the  swords  of  heroes.  Armies  were 
being  mustered,  drilled,  and  set  to  march- 
ing. Again  the  land  was  bereft  of  its 
best  strength.  Out  of  every  family,  a  hus- 
band, father,  brother,  son,  was  on  his  way 
to  Palestine.  And  Bernard,  in  city  after 
city,  was  threatening  the  pains  of  hell  to 
such  as  stayed  at  home,  and  promising  the 
bliss  of  heaven  to  such  as  took  the  Cross 
and  went. 

But  the  second  Crusade  failed  like  the 
first,  and  worse.  The  Greek  emperor  at 
Constantinople  resented  the  Latin  invasion. 
He  hated  the  Crusade.  He  gave  the 
armies  guides  who  led  them  into  hopeless 
deserts  where  they  died  of  thirst.  The 
Turks  attacked  them.  Finally,  they  took 
to  flight  and  such  as  were  fortunate  made 


i8o  BERNARD 

their  broken  way  back  to  their  homes. 
And  the  grief  and  indignation  of  the 
widows  and  children  of  Europe  fell  upon 
the  head  of  the  man  whose  sermons 
had  sent  these  armies  to  defeat  and 
death. 

Even  here,  Bernard  was  still  master. 
With  all  his  self-reproach,  he  had  the  con- 
sciousness of  having  followed  what  hon- 
estly seemed  to  him  the  will  of  God.  And 
this  honesty  was  recognized.  People  saw 
that  he  had  made  the  great  mistake  for 
no  gain  of  his  own.  He  returned  to  his 
cloister,  and  took  up  again  his  quiet  life 
of  prayer  and  study.  He  wrote  letters 
to  great  people;  he  answered  the  questions 
of  the  perplexed;  he  indicated  what  he 
thought  to  be  the  righteous  direction  of 
public  affairs.  Great  and  little,  he  in- 
terested himself  in  all  matters  in  which 
a  decision  must  be  made  for  the  right  or 
the  wrong.  One  of  his  last  letters  was 
addressed   to   a   count  whose   vassals   had 


BERNARD  i8i 

stolen  some  of  the  pigs  of  Clairvaux.  "  If 
they  had  been  my  own,"  he  said,  "  it  had 
not  greatly  mattered;  I  was  taking  care 
of  them  for  a  neighbor.  You  must  replace 
them." 


BECKET 

1 1 18-1 170 

The  story  of  St.  Martin  and  his  cloak 
was  repeated  one  day — with  a  difference — 
in  the  streets  of  London. 

The  king  and  the  chancellor  were  rid- 
ing together  in  the  cold  winter,  when  they 
saw,  in  the  way  ahead  of  them,  a  poor 
man  coming  down  the  road,  hugging  his 
tattered  coat  about  him,  shivering  in  the 
bitter  wind.  "  Do  you  see  that  poor 
man?"  says  the  king.  "Yes,  I  see  him," 
says  the  chancellor,  "  he  is  very  cold." 
"  He  shivers,"  says  the  king,  "  his  clothes 
are  thin  and  ragged.  Would  it  not  be  a 
kind  and  Christian  act  to  give  him  a  warm 
cloak? "  "  Indeed,  it  would,"  says  the 
chancellor,  "  and  it  is  mighty  good  of  your 
Majesty  to   think  of   it."     So   they  came 

up  with  the  man,  and  stopped  their  horses, 

182 


BECKET 

From  an  old  print 


BECKET  183 

and  the  king  said :  "  Friend,  you  seem  very 
cold;  would  you  not  like  a  thick  warm 
cloak  about  your  shoulders?  "  And  the 
man,  who  knew  them  not,  and  doubted 
whether  the  words  were  meant  in  jest  or 
earnest,  answered  that  a  thick  warm  cloak 
would  be  a  comfortable  thing  to  have. 
"  Then  take  this  one,"  says  the  king, 
laughing,  and  he  began  to  pull  the  chan- 
cellor's cloak  from  off  his  back, — a  fine 
cloak  of  warm  cloth,  gray  and  scarlet. 
The  chancellor  held  on  tight  to  the  cloak, 
and  the  king  pulled  hard,  and  the  knights 
and  nobles  of  the  company  came  clattering 
up  on  their  horses  to  see  what  all  the 
bustle  was  about.  At  last,  the  chancellor 
gave  way,  and  the  astonished  poor  man 
had  the  cloak. 

The  king  was  Henry  II.,  the  chancel- 
lor was  Thomas  Becket.  This  was  only 
one  of  many  times  when  they  played  to- 
gether like  boys.  The  king  used  to  go 
over  to  Becket's  house  to  see  what  he  had 


184  BECKET 

for  dinner,  and  if  it  looked  better  than 
what  he  was  likely  to  get  at  home, — and 
it  did  often,  for  the  chancellor  lived  in 
splendid  state, — the  king  would  vault  over 
the  table,  and  seat  himself  in  the  best 
place,  without  waiting  for  an  invitation. 
Sometimes  he  went  for  business,  sometimes 
for  fun.  The  two  were  always  together. 
"  Never  in  Christian  times,"  says  an  old 
chronicle,  "  were  there  two  men  more  of 
one  mind,  or  better  friends."  The  king 
was  young,  and  the  chancellor  was  younger 
still. 

Becket  was  the  son  of  a  merchant  who 
had  come  from  France  and  had  established 
a  profitable  business  in  London.  His 
father  had  given  him  a  good  education, 
and  he  had  made  the  most  of  it.  The 
lad  was  quick  to  learn,  and  what  he 
learned  he  remembered.  He  studied  law 
and  theology,  and  was  trained  also  in 
the  exercises  of  knighthood.  He  could 
take  his  part  with  grace  and  strength  in 


BECKET  185 

the  great  game  of  the  tournament,  with 
lance  and  sword.  He  was  tall  and  slim, 
with  a  pale  face  and  black  hair,  and  was 
most  pleasant  to  look  upon.  Everybody 
liked  him.  To  the  knowledge  of  a 
scholar,  he  added  the  manners  of  a 
courtier.  He  had  a  frank  and  winning 
way,  and  the  things  which  he  said,  with  a 
bit  of  a  stammer,  were  good  to  hear. 
Wherever  he   went,   he  made   friends. 

Then  his  father  failed  in  his  business, 
and  Thomas  came  home  and  went  into  a 
lawyer's  office,  for  a  time,  as  clerk.  But 
he  was  brought  to  the  attention  of  the 
archbishop  of  Canterbury,  who  took  him 
into  his  employ.  And  thus  he  proceeded 
from  one  position  to  another,  entirely  on 
his  merits  and  good  looks,  serving  always 
diligently  and  well,  till  he  became  arch- 
deacon. Those  were  days  when  the  clergy 
had  a  great  many  other  things  to  do  be- 
side saying  prayers  and  preaching  ser- 
mons.   They  were  lawyers  as  well  as  min- 


i86  BECKET 

isters.  An  archdeacon  was  a  kind  of 
judge.  Thus,  by  an  easy  and  natural  pro- 
motion, the  archdeacon,  having*  come  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  king,  was  by  him 
appointed  chancellor. 

Thus  Becket  became  both  rich  and 
powerful.  He  came  into  possession  of 
great  estates.  He  had  charge  of  the  king's 
seal,  and  all  the  royal  documents  and 
decrees  were  signed  by  him.  He  was 
the  third  person  in  the  realm  of  England; 
first,  the  king;  second,  the  archbishop; 
third,  the  chancellor. 

One  time,  he  went  on  a  pleasant  em- 
bassy to  France.  Henry  desired  to  ask 
the  hand  of  the  French  king's  daughter 
in  marriage  for  his  son.  He  sent  Becket 
to  represent  him.  The  splendor  of  the 
ambassador's  retinue  amazed  the  country. 
First,  as  they  marched,  came  singing 
boys,  two  hundred  and  fifty  of  them, 
ten  abreast;  then  the  chancellor's  hunt- 
ing dogs,  greyhounds  in  leash,  and  hunts- 


BECKET  187 

men  with  them;  then  eight  carriages,  each 
drawn  by  five  horses,  bearing  the  furni- 
ture of  the  chancellor's  chapel,  and  of 
his  chamber,  and  of  his  kitchen;  then 
sumpter-horses  carrying  his  chests  of 
gold  and  silver  plate,  his  store  of  money, 
the  sacred  vessels  of  his  private  altar,  and 
his  four-and-twenty  changes  of  raiment. 
Under  each  sumpter-wagon  walked  a 
chained  dog,  big  and  terrible  as  a  lion, 
and  on  the  back  of  each  horse  rode  a 
tailed  monkey.  Then  came  the  squires 
with  shields,  and  knights  in  shining  armor 
riding  two  and  two,  and,  last  of  all,  the 
magnificent  chancellor.  All  the  roads 
were  lined  with  people;  all  the  windows, 
as  they  passed,  were  filled  with  spectators. 
And  all  who  beheld  the  glittering  proces- 
sion said, — as  the  chancellor  intended 
them  to  say, — "  Marvelous  is  the  king  of 
the  English,  whose  chancellor  goeth  thus 
and   so  grandly!" 

Becket   went    again    to    France    on    an 


i88  BECKET 

errand  not  so  pleasant.  There  was  a  war 
between  the  English  and  the  French,  and  he 
carried  over  seven  hundred  knights,  with 
five  thousand  soldiers  behind  them,  and 
he  at  the  head,  and  fought  a  forty  days' 
campaign,  winning  great  victories.  Once, 
"  with  horse  at  charge  and  lance  in  rest," 
he  met  in  single  combat  a  French  knight 
of  renown,  whom  he  overthrew.  And 
ever  in  battle  he  was  among  those  who 
dared  the  most. 

One  story,  in  the  midst  of  this  courtly 
splendor  and  knightly  valor,  shows  that 
Becket  had  a  mind  for  other  things.  A 
man  who  had  affairs  which  he  wished  to 
bring  to  the  attention  of  the  king  sought 
to  lay  his  matters  first, — as  the  custom 
was, — before  the  chancellor.  But,  getting 
to  London  too  late  in  the  day  for  such 
business,  he  postponed  his  errand  until 
morning.  He  rose  early,  and,  passing  a 
church  on  his  way,  he  went  in  to  say  his 
prayers.      The    place   was    empty,    except 


BECKET  189 

for  one  other  devout  person,  who  was 
kneeling  by  the  door.  The  stranger's  at- 
tention was  attracted  by  the  earnestness 
of  this  worshiper's  prayer,  and  he  ob- 
served him  carefully.  As  he  chanced, 
however,  to  cough  or  sneeze,  the  man  who 
was  at  his  prayers,  thus  perceiving  that 
he  was  not  alone,  brought  his  petitions 
to  an  end,  and  left  the  church.  When 
presently,  the  stranger  carried  his  busi- 
ness to  the  chancellor's  court,  there,  on 
the  chancellor's  bench,  sat  the  person 
whom  he  had  seen  at  his  devotions. 

Now,  it  was  the  desire  of  Henry  to 
bring  the  nation  under  his  own  control. 
It  was  a  wild,  rough  time,  when  many 
men  did  as  they  pleased  without  regard  to 
peace  or  justice,  and  there  was  need  of 
a  firm  hand.  The  king,  very  properly, 
felt  that  it  was  his  business  to  govern 
England,  and  he  proposed  to  do  it. 

But  in  those  days  there  were  two  kinds 
of  law:  one  law  for  people  in  general,  and 


190  BECKET 

another  law  for  the  clergy.  There  were 
two  kinds  of  courts:  the  king's  court  and 
the  Church's  court.  And  the  clergy,  who 
were  subject  only  to  the  Church's  court, 
included  most  of  the  people  who  could 
read  and  write.  All  the  lawyers  were 
clergymen,  all  the  schoolmasters,  and  most 
of  the  men  in  public  office. 

The  consequence  was  that  the  king  was 
the  ruler  of  only  a  part  of  the  nation. 
The  real  ruler  of  the  other  part  was  the 
pope  in  Rome.  And  this  made  great 
confusion,  and  was  constantly  in  the  way 
of  the  king's  purpose  to  bring  the  whole 
land  under  one  strong  law.  A  man  might 
be  a  most  dangerous  citizen,  and  guilty  of 
most  serious  offenses,  but  if  he  belonged 
in  any  way  to  the  estate  of  the  clergy, 
if  he  was  a  monk  or  even  a  sexton,  the 
king  could  not  touch  him. 

So  when  the  archbiship  of  Canter- 
bury died,  the  king  saw  an  opportunity 
to   end   this   confusion,    and   to   bring   the 


BECKET  191 

Church  under  the  law  of  the  State.  He 
appointed  Becket  in  his  place.  "  Now," 
he  said  to  himself,  "  Becket  and  I  will 
work  together."  The  splendid  chancel- 
lor, the  king's  friend,  loving  power  and 
wealth  and  luxury,  would  be  the  very 
man  to  compel  the  Church  to  obey  the 
king's  will. 

But  there  was  a  quality  in  Becket  which 
the  king  had  never  noticed.  He  had  a 
strong  sense  of  loyalty  to  whatever  mas- 
ter he  served.  He  had  been  devoted  to 
the  king,  and  at  his  bidding  had  already 
disregarded  what  seemed  to  be  the  interest 
of  the  Church.  He  had  compelled 
churchmen  to  pay  taxes  which  they  had 
not  been  used  to  pay.  He  had  served  the 
king  completely.  But  that  was  because 
he  was  the  servant  of  the  king.  Now, 
as  archbishop,  he  considered  himself  the 
servant  of  the  pope.  The  man  was  made 
that  way.  That  was  how  his  conscience 
worked. 


192  BECKET 

He  begged  the  king  not  to  appoint  him. 
He  looked  down  at  his  splendid  dress, 
and  said,  "  I  am  not  the  man  to  be  set 
in  this  holy  office.  I  know,  too,  that  if 
I  take  it,  the  pleasant  friendship  between 
us  shall  surely  end  in  bitterness.  You 
will  demand  what  I  cannot  grant."  But 
the  king  insisted. 

Then  Becket  changed  his  life.  He  put 
off  his  gay  apparel.  He  fasted  and 
prayed.  He  gave  himself  to  the  Church, 
as  he  had  previously  given  himself  to  the 
court. 

The  king  called  a  council  which  passed 
laws  bringing  all  men,  whether  clergy  or 
not,  under  the  control  of  the  king's 
judges.  He  restored  the  old  custom  of 
investiture  against  which  Anselm  had 
contended.  He  required  every  bishop  to 
confess  himself  the  "  king's  man."  And, 
especially,  he  decreed  that  whenever  any- 
body was  convicted  in  the  Church  court, 
he  must  be  sent  at  once  to  the  king's  court 


BECKET  193 

for  punishment  Against  the  enactments 
of  this  council  Becket  protested.  He  was 
honestly  convinced  that  the  welfare  of  the 
nation  rested  on  the  independence  of  the 
Church. 

Thus  it  was  Becket  against  Henry, 
Church  against  State.  All  the  king's  fine 
plans  for  good  government  were  stopped. 
The  strife  divided  England  for  the  mo- 
ment into  two  nations:  on  one  side, 
Henry  and  the  barons;  on  the  other  side, 
Becket  and  the  pope.  Each  was  trying 
to  control  the  other;  each  was  contending 
for  independence.  So  it  went  on  for  six 
years.  Henry  attacked  the  Church  by 
taking  away  its  lands;  Becket  attacked 
the  State  by  excommunicating  those  who 
were  against  him.  At  that  time,  people 
believed  that  excommunication  placed 
men  in  peril  of  everlasting  punishment. 
They  were  afraid  of  it.  Becket,  who  had 
fled  to  France,  refused  all  compromise. 
He  would  not  agree  to  any  proposition  of 


194  BECKET 

the  king  except  with  the  reservation, 
"  saving  the  honor  of  my  order."  That 
meant  that  he  v^ould  not  yield  in  the 
slightest  degree  the  independence  of  the 
Church.  Even  those  who  were  on 
Becket's  side  grew  weary  of  the  sound 
of  the  words.  "  Come  up,"  cried  one,  as 
his  horse  stumbled, — "  saving  the  honor  of 
my  order." 

At  last,  the  king  and  the  archbishop 
met  in  France,  and  a  sort  of  peace  was 
made  between  them,  and  Becket  returned 
to  Canterbury.  Immediately,  he  began 
the  fight  again.  The  king's  young  son 
had  been  crowned,  during  Becket's 
absence,  by  the  archbishop  of  York.  But 
a  royal  coronation,  according  to  the  cus- 
tom, was  the  business  of  the  archbishop 
of  Canterbury.  Becket  excommunicated 
the  bishops  who  had  been  concerned  in  it. 
Thus  nothing  had  been  gained.  The  king 
was  as  far  from  his  great  plans  as  ever. 

The  news  of  these  doings  came  to  the 


BECKET  195 

king  in  France.  And  one  of  those  who 
stood  about  him  said,  *'  My  lord,  while 
Thomas  lives,  you  will  not  have  peace  or 
quiet,  or  see  another  good  day."  And 
the  king  answered  in  fierce  anger,  "  I 
have  nourished  and  promoted  sluggish  and 
wretched  knaves,"  he  said,  "  who  are 
faithless  to  their  lord,  and  suffer  him  to 
be  tricked  thus  infamously  by  a  low 
clerk." 

Thereupon  four  knights  of  the  king's 
household  departed  straightway  from  his 
presence,  saying  no  word  to  any  man, 
and  made  their  way  to  England.  On  the 
fourth  day  after  Christmas  they  came  to 
Canterbury  and  confronted  the  archbishop. 
"  You  have  presumed,"  they  said,  "  to  ex- 
communicate the  bishop  by  whom  the 
king's  son  was  crowned.  You  have  made 
yourself  a  traitor  to  the  prince  and  to  the 
king.  Now  take  back  these  curses,  or  else 
depart  out  of  the  land."  And  when  he 
refused   either   to   change  his   curses   into 


196  BECKET 

blessings,  or  to  depart,  they  threatened 
his  life.  They  would  go  and  arm  them- 
selves, they  said,  and  come  back  and  kill 
him.  "  Here,"  he  answered,  "  here  shall 
ye  find  me." 

And  there,  indeed,  they  found  him. 
The  bell  rang  for  vespers.  In  the  choir 
of  the  great  church  the  monks  began  to 
sing  the  service.  The  archbishop  joined 
them  in  their  prayers.  There  came  a 
great  battering  of  swords  and  lances  at 
the  door,  and  the  four  knights  entered. 
In  the  late  afternoon,  and  at  the  season 
when  the  days  are  short,  the  church  was 
dark,  except  where  candles  glimmered  in 
the  choir.  "  Where  is  Thomas  Becket?  " 
cried  the  knights.  "  Where  is  the  traitor 
to  the  king  and  realm?"  And  when  the 
service  suddenly  ceased,  and  the  fright- 
ened monks  begged  Becket  to  take  advan- 
tage of  the  dark  and  hide  himself,  they 
cried  again,  ''Where  is  the  archbishop?" 
Then    came    Becket    forth.      "You    shall 


BECKET  197 

die,"  they  shouted.  "  I  am  ready  to  die," 
he  answered,  "  for  my  Lord,  that  in  my 
blood  the  Church  may  obtain  liberty  and 
peace."  Then  they  struck  him  with  their 
swords,  and  escaped  into  the  night. 

The  murder  of  Becket  horrified  all 
Christendom,  but  nobody  was  more  filled 
with  horror  than  the  king.  He  put  off 
his  royal  robes,  and  put  on  sackcloth. 
Such  was  his  grief  that  those  about  him 
feared  that  he  would  lose  his  reason,  or 
his  life.  He  submitted  himself  to  the 
judgment  of  the  pope.  He  agreed  to  send 
a  hundred  knights  to  fight  in  the  Holy 
Land  against  the  Saracens,  to  restore  the 
lands  which  he  had  taken  from  the 
Church,  and  to  repeal  the  laws  against 
which  Becket  had  contended.  And  one 
day,  at  Canterbury,  he  laid  himself  down 
on  the  church  floor  and  directed  the  monks 
to  beat  him,  each  with  a  rod. 

As  for  the  martyr,  extraordinary  things 
began  to  happen  at  his  tomb.    Sick  people 


198  BECKET 

were  made  sound,  and  the  lame  began  to 
walk,  and  the  blind  to  see.  The  pope 
placed  the  name  of  Becket  among  the 
saints.  A  golden  shrine  was  erected  over 
him,  which  year  by  year  grew  in  magnifi- 
cence. The  glory  of  the  magnificent 
chancellor  was  eclipsed  by  the  splendor 
of  the  saint.  Gold  and  precious  gems 
surrounded  him.  Pilgrims  came  from 
far  and  near  to  say  their  prayers  beside 
him,  hoping  that  he  would  add  his  prayers 
to  theirs.  Chaucer's  pleasant  company, 
telling  the  Canterbury  Tales,  was  but  one 
of  the  thousand  groups  of  men  and  women 
who  came  to  see  the  place  of  the  martyr- 
dom of  Becket. 


LANGTON 

From  the  statue  by  Gutzon  Borgluin,  Cathedral  of 
St  John  the  Divine,  New  York 


LANGTON 

II70?-I228 

The  great  fight  of  Becket  against  King 
Henry  for  the  independence  of  the 
Church  was  followed  by  the  great  fight 
of  Langton  against  King  John  for  the 
independence  of  the  nation. 

John  had  been  false  to  his  father  Henry. 

The  last  days  of  that  strong  king  had  been 

embittered   by  the   rebellion   of   his  older 

sons.    John,  the  youngest,  was  his  favorite. 

For    John's    sake,    Henry    had    disowned 

Richard  and  had  made  war  against  him. 

But   when    the    battles    went    against   the 

king,    and   the   victorious   nobles   brought 

him   a  list  of  the   rebels  whom  he  must 

pardon,  the  name  at  the  head  of  the  list 

was   that  of   John.     Then   the   sick   king 

turned  his  face  to  the  wall.     "  Now,"  he 

said,    "  let    things    go    as    they    will, — I 

199 


200  LANGTON 

care  no  more  for  myself  or  for  the 
world." 

John  had  been  false  also  to  his  brother 
Richard.  You  remember  the  message 
from  the  king  of  France  which  came  to 
John  as  he  sat  at  the  tournament  of  Ashby- 
de-la-Zouche:  "The  devil  is  loose;  take 
care  of  yourself."  Richard-of-the-Lion- 
Heart  had  been  fighting  in  Palestine,  try- 
ing to  take  Jerusalem  out  of  the  hands 
of  Saladin.  Shipwrecked  on  his  way 
home,  he  had  been  seized  by  his  enemies, 
and  held  for  ransom  in  Germany.  Mean- 
while, in  England,  John  had  been  trying 
to  become  king  of  England  in  his  place. 
The  "  devil  "  was  Richard,  released  from 
prison,  returning  to  his  throne. 

Then  Richard  died,  killed  with  an 
arrow  at  the  siege  of  a  town  in  France, 
and  John,  becoming  king  indeed,  began 
to  show  himself  as  false  to  his  people  as 
he  had  been  false  to  his  father  and  his 
brother.    The  man  who  stood  against  him, 


LANGTON  20I 

and  saved  the  country,  was  Stephen  Lang- 
ton. 

The  kings  of  England  since  the  Norman 
Conquest  had  been  Frenchmen.  Their 
kingdom  had  included,  not  England  only, 
but  rich  lands  in  France.  And  in  France 
they  had  lived,  coming  but  rarely  to  Eng- 
land, partly  for  the  purpose  of  fighting 
against  rebellious  English,  and  partly  for 
the  purpose  of  getting  English  money  with 
which  to  fight  rebellious  Frenchmen,  But 
when  John  became  king,  most  of  the 
French  possessions  had  been  lost.  There- 
fore he  lived,  much  against  his  will,  in 
England. 

John's  great  desire  was  to  get  back  the 
provinces  of  France.  But  for  such  a  war 
he  needed  men  and  money.  He  found 
his  demand  for  money  met  by  the  refusal 
of  the  bishops,  and  his  demand  for  men 
met  by  the  refusal  of  the  barons.  The 
bishops  declared  that  they  would  not: 
pay  the  king's  taxes;  the  barons  declared 


202  LANGTON 

that  they  would  no  longer  fight  the  king's 
battles   over   seas. 

The  king's  struggle  with  the  Church 
began  with  the  appointment  of  an  arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury.  That  great  place 
being  vacant,  there  were  two  men  pro- 
posed to  fill  it.  One  was  chosen  by  the 
monks  of  Canterbury  at  their  own  will; 
another  was  chosen  by  the  monks  of  Can- 
terbury acting  against  their  own  will  at 
the  command  of  the  king.  One  was  the 
Church's  man,  the  other  was  the  king's 
man.  The  two  appealed  to  the  pope. 
But  the  pope,  at  that  moment,  was  Inno- 
cent III.,  whose  supreme  ideal  was  to 
carry  into  effect  the  principles  of  Hilde- 
brand.  He  proposed  to  be  the  spiritual 
father  of  all  Europe,  having  all  kings  for 
his  sons,  and  securing  thereby  the  peace 
and  righteousness  of  Christendom.  Inno- 
cent, accordingly,  dismissed  both  of  the 
applicants  for  the  archbishopric  of  Can- 
terbury, and  appointed  Stephen  Langton. 


LANGTON  203 

Langton  was  an  Englishman,  of  high 
character,  then  resident  in  Rome,  who 
for  his  merits  had  been  made  a  cardinal. 

The  king  refused  to  permit  Langton  to 
enter  England,  and  the  pope  threatened  an 
interdict.  Now,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  an 
interdict  was  considered  worse  than  a 
war  and  a  plague  combined.  It  was  a 
withdrawal  of  the  privileges  of  the 
Christian  religion  from  all  the  people  of 
the  land;  once  an  interdict  was  pronounced 
at  Rome,  all  church  bells  ceased  to  ring, 
all  church  doors  were  closed.  There  were 
no  more  services,  and  no  more  sacraments. 
Nobody  could  be  baptized,  nobody  could 
receive  the  saving  grace  of  the  Holy 
Communion,  nobody  could  be  married, 
nobody  could  be  buried.  It  meant  to  the 
people,  not  only  an  interruption  of  all  the 
rites  of  religion  on  which  they  depended, 
"but  the  serious  peril  of  their  immortal 
souls. 

Innocent    threatened    to    lay    England 


204  LANGTON 

under  an  interdict  till  John  should  receive 
Langton.  And  when  the  archbishop  of 
York  was  in  his  turn  driven  out  of  the 
country  for  his  resistance  to  an  unjust  tax, 
the  threat  was  executed.  First  the  land 
was  laid  under  the  interdict;  then  the  king 
was  excommunicated;  finally,  the  king  was 
declared  deposed,  his  throne  was  pro- 
nounced vacant,  all  his  subjects  were 
absolved  from  their  obedience  to  him,  all 
his  enemies  were  encouraged  to  attack  him, 
and  in  particular  his  worst  enemy,  Philip 
of  France,  was  commanded  to  make  war 
upon  him. 

Then  John  found  himself  in  evil  case. 
At  first,  he  was  defiant  enough,  and  tried 
the  fortunes  of  war,  but  his  barons  would 
not  fight,  and  the  war  went  against  him. 
Then  he  submitted.  He  knelt  before 
Pandulph,  the  representative  of  the  pope. 
He  took  ofif  his  royal  crown  and  put  it 
into  Pandulph's  hands.  He  confessed  him- 
self the  "  pope's  man."     And  to  the  pope 


LANGTON  205 

he  gave  all  England,  as  a  conquered  king 
surrenders  his  kingdom  to  his  conqueror. 
The  interdict  was  removed  and  Stephen 
Langton  came  to  Canterbury. 

Immediately  Langton  became  the  head 
not  of  the  bishops  only  but  of  the  barons. 

The  first  thing  which  he  did,  when  he 
released  the  king  from  his  excommunica- 
tion, was  to  make  him  swear  to  keep  the 
laws    of    Edward    the    Confessor.      That 
meant    that    the    king    must    observe    the 
ancient  customs  by  which  the  liberties  of 
Englishmen    were    protected    before    the 
Normans  conquered  England.    It  speedily 
became  plain,  however,  that  this  was  too 
vague  a  promise.     Having  such  a  king  as 
John,  it  was  necessary  to  make  the  rights 
of  the  people  much  more  definite.     John 
had  inherited,  from  his  Norman  ancestors, 
the  idea  that  the  kingdom  belonged  to  the 
king.    They  had  taken  England  by  force, 
and  they  proposed  to  do  what  they  pleased 
with  it.     The  king's  will,  they  said,  was 


2o6  LANGTON 

law.  But  the  new  England,  which  had 
grown  up  since  the  Conquest,  was  now 
unwilling  to  consent  to  this.  The  des- 
potism of  the  foreign  kings  had  united 
all  the  races  of  the  lands.  It  had  made 
Angles  and  Saxons,  Britons  and  Danes, 
Englishmen  and  Normans,  into  one  peo- 
ple. And  this  people,  with  Langton  for 
its  spokesman  and  leader,  was  at  last 
arrayed   against   the  king. 

Thus  the  great  interdict  was  followed 
by  the  Great  Charter. 

Suddenly,  to  the  surprise  of  John,  the 
barons  met  in  arms  and  demanded  a  new 
statement  of  the  relation  between  the  king 
and  the  people.  They  proposed  a  series 
of  laws  which  should  thenceforth  govern, 
not  only  the  people,  but  the  king.  These 
laws,  based  on  old  customs  and  traditions 
much  improved  by  experience,  were  drawn 
up  by  Langton  for  the  king  to  sign. 

The  king  postponed  and  postponed  this 
surrender  of  his  despotic  power.     He  ap- 


LANGTON  207 

pealed  for  help  to  his  new  master,  the 
pope,  under  whose  protection  he  had 
hoped  to  overcome  his  enemies.  But  the 
pope  sent  him  no  help.  The  bishops  were 
against  him,  the  barons  were  against  him, 
the  people  were  against  him.  He  was 
alone  against  this  demand  for  the  liberties 
of  the  land.  Thus  he  submitted  to  Eng- 
land as  he  had  before  submitted  to  Rome. 

The  place  of  meeting  was  an  island  in 
the  Thames  near  Windsor.  The  king  and 
his  courtiers  were  encamped  on  one  bank 
of  the  river,  Langton  and  the  barons  were 
encamped  on  the  other  side,  in  a  wide 
meadow,  whose  name  of  Runnymede  has 
been  famous  since  that  day  in  the  history 
of  political  liberty.  There  John  signed 
the  Great  Charter,  "  Magna  Charter.'' 
And  after  he  had  signed  it,  back  he  went 
to  his  palace,  and  there  rolled  upon  the 
floor  in  a  rage  for  which  he  had  no  words, 
gnawing  the  sticks  and  straws. 

The  charter  provided  for  the  freedom  of 


2o8  LANGTON 

the  Church  from  the  personal  will  of  the 
king.  It  secured  all  men  from  imprison- 
ment or  seizure  except  by  process  of  law. 
It  declared  that  no  new  tax  should  be 
imposed  except  by  consent  of  the  common 
council  of  the  realm.  And  a  committee  of 
twenty-four  stout  and  determined  barons 
was  appointed  to  see  that  the  king  obeyed 
it. 

It  is  true  that  the  pope  declared  the 
charter  was  of  no  effect.  But  that  was 
not  because  of  any  affection  for  John  or 
because  of  any  objection  to  the  liberties 
of  England.  It  was  because  he  felt  that 
he  should  have  been  consulted  first.  That 
was  according  to  his  honest  theory  of  the 
proper  conduct  of  the  world.  It  is  true 
that  Langton  was  recalled  to  Rome.  But 
it  made  no  difference.  The  great  thing 
was  done. 


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P^l 

ST.   DOMINIC 

From  the  picture  by  Titian,  Villa  Borghese,  Rome 


DOMINIC 

1170-1221 

One  of  the  most  dangerous  things  in 
the  world  is  money;  and  equally  danger- 
ous is  power. 

Both  power  and  money  are  very  pleas- 
ant possessions,  but  they  tempt  people  to 
be  selfish.  Men  who  become  rich  often 
forget  that  they  have  neighbors  who  are 
poor;  and  they  who  have  power  are  dis- 
posed to  use  it  for  their  own  advantage. 
They  live  in  their  comfortable  houses,  and 
attend  to  their  own  business,  and  shut  their 
eyes  and  ears  to  the  hardships  of  the 
world.  They  are  tempted  to  be  worse 
than  selfish.  Being  attired  in  purple  and 
fine  linen,  and  faring  sumptuously  every 
day,  they  forget  not  their  neighbors  only, 
but  God  also.    And  this  has  happened,  not 

only  to  princes,  but  to  priests;  not  only  to 

209 


2IO  DOMINIC 

barons,  but  to  bishops,  and  has  made  its 
way  into  monasteries. 

It  was  very  fine  for  Hildebrand  to 
take  the  crown  of  the  emperor  of  Ger- 
many, and  for  Innocent  to  take  the  crown 
of  the  king  of  England.  It  was  the  honest 
belief  of  these  popes  that  if  they  could 
thus  make  themselves  the  masters  of  the 
world  they  could  make  it  a  good  world. 
But  such  mastery  brought  with  it  the 
perils  of  power  and  money,  and  the  great, 
rich  Church  fell  into  selfishness  and  evil 
living.  The  cathedrals  and  the  abbeys 
were  splendid  buildings,  and  the  services 
which  took  place  in  them  were  magnifi- 
cent with  colors  and  lights  and  incense, 
but  the  ministers  who  conducted  the  serv- 
ices and  the  people  who  attended  them 
made  little  effort  to  make  either  the  world 
or  themselves  better.  "  The  time  has  long 
passed,"  said  one  cardinal  to  another, 
"  when  the  Church  could  say,  with  Peter, 
'  Silver  and  gold  have  I  none.'  "     "  Yes," 


DOMINIC  211 

replied  the  other  cardinal,  "  and  the  time 
has  also  passed  when  the  Church  could 
say,  '  Rise  up  and  walk.'  " 

This  state  of  things  produced  a  re- 
action. There  were  still  great  numbers 
of  good  people  who  saw  clearly  that  the 
true  purpose  of  religion  is  to  help  men 
and  women  to  live  aright  with  God  and 
with  their  neighbors.  The  sight  of  the 
Church  of  Christ  forsaking  its  proper 
work  in  the  world,  devoting  itself  to 
architecture  and  music,  and  living  in  self- 
ishness and  sin,  filled  them  with  horror. 
They  hated  it.  By-and-by  the  time  came 
when  the  Church  had  so  far  departed 
from  the  Christian  religion  that  they  felt 
themselves  forced  into  that  great  revolu- 
tion called  the  Reformation,  but,  long  be- 
fore that,  they  cried  out,  in  the  name 
of  God,  like  the  old  prophets,  against  a 
religion  which  had  come  to  be,  in  many 
places,  only  a  combination  of  idolatry  and 
immorality. 


212  DOMINIC 

Thus  in  the  south  of  France,  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  city  of  Albi,  arose 
the  Albigenses. 

It  is  difficult  to  determine  just  what 
these  people  believed.  Almost  all  that 
is  known  about  them  is  contained  in  the 
accounts  of  their  enemies.  Very  likely, 
they  had  strange  opinions.  They  were 
reported  to  hold,  like  the  Manichees  of 
St.  Augustine's  day,  that  there  is  a  bad 
God  as  well  as  a  good  God.  That  was 
their  explanation  of  the  wickedness  of  the 
world  as  they  saw  it.  It  is  certain  that 
they  were  enemies  of  the  Church,  and  that 
their  enmity  was  based  on  moral  grounds. 
They  were  good,  earnest  people  who  loved 
righteousness  and  hated  iniquity.  They 
stopped  going  to  church,  and  held  meetings 
of  their  own.  They  went  about  preaching 
what  seemed  to  them  the  true  religion. 
The  churches  were  deserted.  The  people 
who  desired  to  live  aright  joined  the 
Albigenses.      The    Church    sent    mission- 


DOMINIC  213 

aries,  men  of  that  Cistercian  Order  to 
which  St.  Bernard  had  belonged, — but  the 
missionaries  were  dignified  persons, 
dressed  in  splendid  clothes,  and  taking 
excellent  care  of  themselves,  and  they  were 
in  such  contrast  with  the  plain,  simple,  and 
devout  Albigensian  preachers  that  they 
made  no  converts. 

At  that  time,  however,  a  young  man 
was  journeying  through  that  part  of  the 
country,  with  open  eyes  and  an  under- 
standing heart.  Dominic  had  just  been 
graduated  at  a  Spanish  university,  and 
was  taking  his  first  look  at  the  world.  He 
was  an  excellent  scholar,  of  pure  and  help- 
ful life,  and  desirous  to  be  of  use  in  the 
Church.  He  saw  at  once  that  the  elegant 
Cistercians  could  accomplish  nothing. 
What  was  needed  was  a  company  of  men, 
living  as  plainly  and  righteously  as  the 
Albigensians,  who  could  preach  with  all 
the  Albigensian  directness  and  with  more 
wisdom.     He  saw  that  the   revolt  of   the 


214  DOMINIC 

people  against  the  Church  was  caused  by 
the  wickedness  and  weakness  of  the 
Church,  and  that  their  departures  from 
the  creed  were  caused  by  errors  which 
clear  explanation  might  correct.  The 
Church  must  be  represented,  then,  by 
better  men,  and  the  truth  must  be  correctly 
taught. 

The  men  whom  Dominic  gathered  about 
him  for  this  excellent  purpose  became 
presently  a  new  society  called  the  Domini- 
cans. They  brought  back  into  religion 
the  ancient  custom  of  preaching.  It  had 
fallen  into  disuse.  Bishops  preached, 
but  hardly  anybody  else;  and  even  the 
bishops  preached  little,  except  in  Lent. 
The  purpose  of  going  to  church 
was  not  to  hear  a  sermon,  but  to  at- 
tend a  service.  The  Dominicans  were 
preachers. 

Dominic  introduced  another  new  Idea 
into  the  religion  of  his  time.  The  Bene- 
dictines    and     the     Cistercians     lived     in 


DOMINIC  215 

monasteries;  their  ideal  was  to  keep 
themselves  apart  from  the  world.  The 
Dominicans  took  a  new  name.  Instead  of 
calling  themselves  "  monks,"  which  means 
men  living  alone,  they  called  themselves 
"  friars,"  which  means  brothers.  They 
lived  out-of-doors.  They  went  about 
among  the  people. 

Dominic's  mother  had  a  queer  dream 
one  night,  in  which  she  saw  her  son 
changed  into  a  little  black-and-white  dog, 
having  a  blazing  torch  in  his  mouth.  The 
black-and-white  part  of  the  dream  seemed 
to  come  true  when  the  Dominicans  chose 
for  their  dress  a  long  white  cassock,  over 
which  they  wore  a  black  cloak.  But  a 
blazing  torch  may  serve  either  to  give 
light  or  to  set  fire. 

The  good  purpose  of  Dominic  was  to 
enlighten  the  world.  His  intention  was 
to  advance  the  cause  of  truth  by  the  use 
of  reason.  The  bad  world,  he  thought, 
would  be  made  better  by  the  persuasion 


2i6  DOMINIC 

of  earnest  preaching.  This,  however,  is  a 
slow  process,  and  calls  for  long  patience. 
Nobody  knows  what  the  eloquence  of  the 
Dominicans  might  have  done  for  the 
Albigenses,  because  the  sermons  of  Domi- 
nic were  speedily  followed  by  the  sword 
of  Simon  de  Montfort.  The  pope  pro- 
claimed a  crusade  against  these  critics  of 
the  Church.  An  orthodox  army  was  sent 
against  them.  The  faithful  preachers  and 
their  good  people  were  murdered, — men, 
women,  and  children  together, — in  the 
ruins  of  their  burning  houses.  The  blaz- 
ing torch  burned  city  after  city.  At  last, 
the  Albigenses  ceased  to  raise  their  pro- 
test against  the  sins  of  the  Church,  because 
scarcely  any  of  them  were  left  alive. 
Thus  the  selfish  and  evil  Church  met  the 
first  determined  effort  to  restore  the  right- 
eousness of  true  religion. 

And  after  the  horrors  of  the  Albigensian 
Crusade,  came  the  horrors  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion.     People   who    denied   the   faith,    or 


DOMINIC  217 

who  were  suspected  of  denying  the  faith, 
were  examined  by  inquisitors,  put  to  tor- 
ture, whipped,  pinched  with  hot  iron, 
their  legs  and  arms  broken,  their  skin 
scraped  ofif,  their  tongues  cut  out,  their 
eyes  burned  in  the  sockets,  and,  at  last, 
tied  to  a  stake,  the  blazing  torch  set  fire 
to  the  heap  of  wood  in  the  midst  of  which 
the  heretic  was  fastened.  It  used  to  be 
said  that  Dominic  established  the  Inquisi- 
tion. Probably  not.  It  is  certain,  how- 
ever, that  the  bad  business  of  managing  it 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  Dominicans. 
They  addressed  themselves  to  the  putting 
down  of  heresy.  They  were  the  defenders 
of  the  faith.  They  preached,  indeed,  fol- 
lowing the  example  of  their  founder. 
They  wrote  books.  One  of  them,  Thomas 
Aquinas,  was  the  greatest  theologian  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  Everywhere,  their 
churches  and  houses  stood  beside  the 
churches  and  houses  of  the  Franciscans; 
the  Dominicans  devoted  to  orthodoxy,  the 


2i8  DOMINIC 

Franciscans    to    charity.      But    they    con- 
ducted  the    Inquisition. 

Thus     the     ideals     of     Dominic     were 
brought    to    failure.      He    belongs    with 
Francis,  with  Wycliffe,  and  with  Wesley  in 
his  intention  to  save  the  world  by  preach- 
ing; but  his  preachers  proved  to  be  only 
the  heralds  of  the  most  infamous  of  the 
wars   of   the   Church.      He   belongs   with 
modern  men  in  his  purpose  to  meet  error 
with  the  weapons  of  reason;  but  the  move- 
ment which  began  with  reason  proceeded 
to  deal  with  error  after  a  fashion  in  which 
reason  had  no  part  whatever.     It  was  the 
chief   enemy  of   reason.      Dominic   was   a 
good  man,  whose  single  aim  was  to  serve 
God  and  the  Church.     He  succeeded  in 
bringing  a  new  earnestness   into   religion. 
But   that   which    in    him    was    earnestness 
in  his  followers  was  bigotry  and  cruelty. 
The  virtues  of  Dominic  are  obscured  by 
the  crimes  of  the  Dominicans. 


FRANCIS 
1182-1226 

Of  all  the  merry  lads  in  the  sunny 
streets  of  Assisi,  the  merriest  was  young 
Francis  Bernardone.  He  it  was  who  sang 
the  liveliest  songs,  and  wore  the  gayest 
clothes,  and  was  the  leader  of  the  games. 
His  father  was  a  merchant  whose  shop  was 
filled  with  silk  and  cloth  of  gold,  and 
there  was  money  for  Francis  to  spend,  and 
he  spent  it  splendidly.  He  worked,  too, 
in  the  shop,  and  carried  his  father's 
goods  into  the  market  of  Assisi,  and  into 
other  markets,  even  so  far  away  as  Rome. 

Assisi  stands  on  a  hilltop,  and  one  looks 
out  over  some  of  the  fairest  fields  of  Italy, 
away  to  Perugia  on  another  hilltop, 
neighbor  and  rival,  with  whose  citizens 
the  Assisans  used  to  fight  whenever  oppor- 
tunity offered.     It  was   thus   made  plain 

219 


220  FIL\^XIS 

to  Francis,  even  from  the  beginning  of 
his  life,  that  Assisi  was  not  the  whole  of 
the  world.  And  this  important  fact  his 
journeys  into  other  towns  confirmed.  In 
one  of  the  battles  with  Perugia  he  was 
taken  captive,  and  lay  for  a  whole  year 
in  a  Perugian  prison.  Thus  amidst  his 
merriment,  he  had  time  to  think. 

One  day,  in  Rome,  going  into  St.  Peter's 
Church,  and  noticing  there  the  careful 
economy  with  which  the  worshipers  made 
their  offerings  to  God,  he  took  his 
purse  and  threw  down  all  he  had  before 
an  altar,  the  gold  and  silver  making  a 
great  clattering  upon  the  floor.  Then  he 
changed  clothes  with  a  beggar  on  the 
church  steps,  and  there  sat  all  day  and 
begged. 

\  Twice,  after  an  illness,  he  dreamed 
strange  dreams  which  seemed  to  tell  him 
what  he  ought  to  do  with  his  life. 

One  was  the  vision  of  a  great  armory 
full  of  swords  and  lances,  into  which  he 


FRANCIS  221 

was  bidden  to  go  and  arm  himself.  He 
thought  that  this  meant  that  he  should 
be  a  soldier,  and  out  he  started  on  the 
next  expedition,  with  shield  and  helmet, 
mounted  on  horseback.  But  he  came  back, 
convinced  that  soldiering  was  not  the  trade 
for   him. 

The  other  dream  commanded  him  to  re- 
build a  ruined  church,  and  at  once  he  set 
about  the  work  of  making  a  new  wall  for 
the  little  chapel  of  St.  Darnian.  He  went 
around  asking  his  neighbors  to  give  him 
stones^=-^ 

It  was  this  rebuilding  of  St.  Darnian's 
which  sent  Francis  finally  upon  his  great 
career.  The  repairing  even  of  a  small 
ruined  church  without  money,  and  with 
no  other  labor  than  that  of  one  pair  of 
unaccustomed  hands,  is  a  slow  process. 
Francis  grew  impatient.  One  day,  filled 
with  a  great  desire  to  get  on  with  this 
good  work,  he  took  a  lot  of  bales  of 
cloth  out  of  his  father's  store,   and   rode 


222  FRANCIS 

away  to  the  next  town,  and  sold  both 
cloth  and  horse. /"  There,"  he  said  to  the 
priest  of  St.  Darnian's,  "  take  this  money 
for  the  church."  But  the  priest  was  not 
willing  to  take  it,  fearing  the  displeasure 
of  Francis's  father.  Francis,  too,  as  he 
considered  the  matter,  began  to  see  that 
his  father  might  object  to  this  selling  of 
his  goods.  He  tossed  the  money  into  a 
corner,  and  hid  himself.  And,  indeed,  his 
father  did  object  most  seriously.  His 
neighbors  also  felt  that  Francis  had  done 
wrong.  When,  at  last,  he  ventured  out 
of  hiding  and  made  his  way  to  his  home, 
they  hooted  him  in  the  streets,  said  he  was 
crazy,  and  stoned  him,  till,  as  he  drew 
near  the  house,  his  father  came  out  to  see 
what  all  the  noise  might  mean,  and,  find- 
ing Francis,  seized  him,  dragged  him  in, 
and  locked  him  up. 

Francis  was  not  a  boy  when  these  events 
took  place.  He  was  twenty-five  years 
old.     Of  course,  it  was  not  right  for  him 


FRANCIS  223 

to  take  things  out  of  his  father's  store  and 
sell  them,  even  for  the  Church,  but  he 
naturally  felt,  after  years  of  service,  that 
the  business  belonged  in  part  to  him. 
Anyhow,  he  was  not  penitent,  and  one 
day  when  his  mother,  in  love  and  pity,  let 
him  out,  back  he  went  to  St.  Darnian's. 

And  then  his  father  went  to  law  about 
it.  He  appealed  to  the  magistrates  to  get 
his  money  back.  The  matter  was  referred 
to  the  bishop.  The  bishop  wisely  advised 
the  young  man  to  restore  the  money  to  his 
father;  and  this  he  did,  gathering  it  up 
from  the  dusty  corner  where  he  had 
thrown  it.  But  when  he  brought  it  to 
his  father,  he  brought  his  clothes  also. 
He  took  off  his  fine  garments,  piled  them 
on  the  floor  and  put  the  money  on  top. 
"  Now,"  he  cried,  ^'  I  am  the  servant  of 
God,  and  my  father  is  the  Father  who  is 
in  heaven." 

The  bishop  flung  a  cloak  about  him,  and 
somebody  gave  him  clothes  to  wear,  and 


224  FRANCIS 

his  lodging  was  at  St.  Darnian's.  The 
good  priest  gave  him  food,  and,  mindful 
of  the  gay  feasts  in  which  he  had  de- 
lighted, gave  him  some  dainties  with  it. 
For  Francis,  who  was  always  a  boy  to  the 
end  of  his  life,  confessed  long  after  that 
he  had  never  lost  his  early  liking  for 
sweet  things.  But  when  Francis  saw  the 
dainties,  he  perceived  that  he  had  not  even 
yet  given  up  the  luxuries  of  life.  Im- 
mediately, he  took  a  plate  and  went  out 
and  begged  his  food  from  door  to  door. 
From  that  moment,  Francis  was  in- 
dependently poor.  Gradually,  compan- 
ions came  to  him,  first  one  and  then 
another,  wishing  to  share  his  life,  and  he 
required  them  all  to  give  up  everything 
that  they  possessed  The  idea  of  a  great 
society  had  not  come  into  his  mind,  but 
it  was  plain  already  that  for  himself  and 
his  little  company  of  friends,  poverty  was 
the  best  condition.  In  an  age  which  was 
tremendously  intent  on  money,  when  even 


FRANCIS  225 

the  Church  was  more  anxious  to  be  rich 
than  to  be  holy,  there  was  need  of  men 
who  had  no  interest  in  wealth.  These 
men  cared  nothing  for  it.  They  were 
glad  to  be  poor.  They  were  happy  to  be 
the  brothers  of  the  poor.  They  went 
about   begging   with    the   beggars. 

One  day,  in  church,  Francis  heard  the 
words  of  Christ  to  His  disciples,  telling 
them  to  provide  no  money  for  their  jour- 
ney, and  to  take  with  them  neither  shoes, 
nor  staff,  nor  wallet,  but  to  go  and  preach, 
saying,  "  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at 
hand."  Immediately,  he  took  the  words 
as  meant  for  him.  He  cast  away  his 
shoes  and  his  staff;  he  unloosed  the  girdle 
from  which  his  wallet  was  suspended,  and 
finding  a  rope,  tied  it  about  his  brown 
cloak.  Thus  the  new  order  was  provided 
with  a  uniform.  They  went  with  bare 
feet,  in  cloak  of  brown  tied  with  a  rope. 
And  they  began  to  preach.  They  jour- 
neyed   about    among    the    little    towns    of 


226  FRANCIS 

Umbria,  getting  people  together  in  market 
places,  and  speaking  to  them  concerning 
God  and  their  souls. 

One  of  the  beautiful  stories  of  the 
preaching  of  Francis  is  about  his  sermon 
to  the  birds.  As  he  was  preaching  to 
the  people,  the  birds  came  and  made  such 
a  noise  chirping  to  each  other  in  the  air 
that  the  voice  of  the  speaker  could  hardly 
be  heard.  Then  the  saint,  with  his  gentle 
courtesy,  turned  to  the  birds.  "  My  sis- 
ters," he  said,  "  it  is  now  time  that  I 
should  speak.  Since  you  have  had  your 
say,  listen  now  in  your  turn  to  the  word 
of  God,  and  be  silent  till  the  sermon  is 
finished."  And  the  legend  says  that  the 
birds  obeyed,  and  sat  still,  listening  with 
attention. 

Another  time,  when  the  number  of  the 
disciples  of  Francis  had  grown  great,  and 
the  Little  Brothers,  as  they  called  them- 
selves, were  very  many,  they  held  a  coun- 
cil at  Assisi,  in  the  flowery  plain  beside 


FRANCIS  227 

the  church  of  St.  Mary  of  the  Angels. 
But  Francis  had  made  no  arrangements 
for  feeding  this  multitude  of  guests.  "  My 
children,"  he  said,  "  we  have  promised 
great  things  to  God,  and  greater  things 
still  have  we  promised  to  ourselves  from 
God;  let  us  observe  those  which  we  have 
promised  to  Him,  and  certainly  expect 
those  which  are  promised  to  us."  And 
from  all  the  neighboring  towns  people 
came  driving  in  with  food,  so  that  they 
had  more  than  enough. 

One  day  Francis  said  to  a  young  brother 
of  the  company,  "  Let  us  go  into  the  town 
and  preach."  So  in  they  went,  from  St. 
Mary's  church  beside  the  gate,  and 
climbed  the  long  Assisi  hill,  and  went 
about  the  streets  and  markets,  and  at  last 
turned  their  steps  towards  home  having 
said  never  a  word.  At  last  the  young 
man  asked,  "  Father,  when  do  we  begin 
to  preach?"  And  Francis  answered, 
"  My   son,   we   have   been   preaching   all 


228  FRANCIS 

the  way,  for  men  have  seen  us  as  we 
wxnt  and  we  have  been  sermons  without 
speech.  Every  man  is  a  sermon  every 
day." 

One  dark  night  Francis  and  Leo  walked 
in  the  cold  rain,  weary  after  a  long  jour- 
ney, Francis  before,  Leo  behind.  And 
Francis  said,  "  Brother  Leo,  if  we  were 
able  to  give  sight  to  the  blind  and  hearing 
to  the  deaf  and  recovery  to  the  sick,  that 
would  not  be  the  perfect  joy."  And 
presently  Francis  said,  "  Brother  Leo,  if 
we  were  able  to  know  all  knowledge,  that 
would  not  be  the  perfect  joy."  And,  a 
while  after,  Francis  said,  "  Brother  Leo, 
if  we  were  able  to  speak  with  the  tongues 
of  angels,  that  would  not  be  the  perfect 
joy."  "Well  then.  Father  Francis,"  said 
Leo  at  last,  "  what  would  be  the  perfect 
joy? "  And  Francis  answered,  "  Here 
we  come,  dripping  with  rain  and  shiver- 
ing with  cold,  to  the  monastery  of  St. 
Mary  of  the  Angels,  expecting  dry  clothes. 


FRANCIS  229 

and  warmth  and  food  and  sleep.  Suppose 
the  porter  does  not  know  us.  We  knock, 
and  he  says,  'Who  is  there?'  and  we  an- 
swer, '  We  are  two  of  thy  brethren,'  and 
he  says,  '  You  are  two  vagabonds,  you  are 
two  tramps,'  and  out  he  comes  and  beats 
us,  and  calls  us  hard  names,  and  rolls  us 
in  the  mud  and  snow,  and  goes  in,  fasten- 
ing the  door  behind  him.  Then  if  we  get 
up  and  go  on  in  great  content,  glad  to  suf- 
fer hardships,  remembering  how  our 
Master  suffered  for  our  sake,  that.  Brother 
Leo,  would  be  the  perfect  joy." 

These  stories  illustrate  the  character  of 
Francis.  He  was  the  most  gentle,  the 
most  cheerful,  the  most  unselfish  of  the 
saints.  In  the  midst  of  a  time  when  every 
man  seemed  to  be  thinking  chiefly  of  his 
own  advantage,  Francis  sought  no  gain 
whatever,  and  desired  only  to  be  of  serv- 
ice to  others.  His  example  revealed  the 
fact  that  the  world  was  not  so  selfish  as 
it  seemed.    Not  only  were  there  men  who 


230  FRANCIS 

came  to  live  under  his  rule,  but  great 
numbers  of  women,  beginning  with  Clara, 
a  devout  young  girl  of  Assisi,  who  came 
from  her  pleasant  home  to  follow  the 
brown-gowned  brethren,  and  took  up  her 
residence  in  that  little  church  of  St.  Dar- 
nian  which  Francis  had  rebuilt.  And 
after  her,  in  the  enthusiasm  which  a  holy 
life  enkindled,  came  multitudes  of  men 
and  women  having  still  their  business  in  the 
world,  their  shops  to  keep,  their  children 
to  bring  up,  unable  to  live  in  the  complete 
consecration  and  poverty  of  Francis  and 
Clara,  and  yet  most  earnestly  desiring  to 
be  better.  And  for  them  Francis  estab- 
lished a  third  order,  giving  them  simple 
rules  of  devout  living  which  they  could 
keep  in  their  own  homes.  Thus  the  in- 
fluence of  Francis  began  to  touch  all  the 
life  about  him. 

He  went  to  Rome,  to  ask  the  blessing 
of  the  pope  upon  his  new  society.  It  is 
said    that    the    great    Innocent,    who    had 


FRANCIS  231 

humbled  the  king  of  England,  was  walk- 
ing in  his  garden  when  Francis  appeared, 
and  at  first  ordered  him  away,  thinking 
that  he  was  a  beggar  from  the  street  who 
had  got  in  by  mistake;  but  it  was  the  pope 
who  was  mistaken.  Innocent  blessed  the 
work  of  Francis,  as  he  was  presently  to 
bless  the  work  of  Dominic. 

He  went  even  to  the  remote  East,  to 
Egypt  and  the  Holy  Land,  following  the 
track  of  the  Crusaders,  and  had  an  inter- 
view with  the  Sultan.  The  Sultan  was 
engaged  in  killing  Christians,  but  Francis 
was  not  afraid.  In  he  went  and  preached 
his  gospel,  to  which  the  Sultan  listened 
gravely,  and  dismissed  him  in  peace. 

And  year  by  year,  the  influence  of  the 
self-sacrifice  of  Francis  extended,  and  the 
Order  grew.  One  day,  the  report  was 
brought  to  him  that  in  a  certain  city  a 
generous  man  had  given  some  of  his  fol- 
lowers a  house  to  live  in.  He  was  filled 
with  great  grief  and  alarm.     He  foresaw 


232  FRANCIS 

that  his  disciples,  devoted  to  holy  poverty 
and  friends  of  the  people  because  they 
were  poor  as  the  poorest,  would  by-and-by 
grow  rich  like  the  rest  of  them,  like  the 
men  who  had  followed  Benedict,  and  the 
men  who  had  followed  Bernard.  And  so 
indeed  it  proved.  Even  in  his  own  life- 
time, the  beautiful  simplicity  of  the  Order 
began  to  be  changed. 

On  he  went,  walking  in  the  steps  of 
Jesus,  making  his  life  as  near  as  he  could 
like  the  perfect  life.  He  went  singing,  with 
the  love  songs  of  the  spirit  in  place  of  the 
love  songs  of  the  troubadours.  The  sun 
and  moon,  the  hills  and  lakes,  the  birds 
and  beasts,  he  called  his  brothers  and  sis- 
ters, and  made  a  poem  about  them,  prais- 
ing God  for  all  the  blessings  of  the  world. 
He  was  always  kind  and  tender,  courteous 
and  gentle;  but  never  sparing  himself. 
Even  near  the  end  of  his  short  life,  when 
sickness  had  begun  to  overtake  him,  he 
would  say,  "Let  us  begin  over  again;  up 


FRANCIS  233 

to  this  moment  we  have  done  nothing  for 
God."  And  it  is  said  that  when  he  died, 
and  they  prepared  his  body  to  be  buried, 
they  found  what  looked  like  nail-prints 
in  his  hands  and  feet,  and  what  looked 
like  the  mark  of  a  spear  in  his  side,  so 
long  and  lovingly  had  he  considered  the 
Cross  of  Christ,  and  so  deeply  had  he 
entered  into  the  fellowship  of  His  suf- 
ferings. 


WYCLIFFE 

1320-1384 

Old  St.  Paul's,  in  London,  was  one  of 
the  longest  of  all  churches,  but  it  was 
crowded  in  all  its  length  and  breadth  on 
the  day  when  John  Wyclifife  was  brought 
there  to  be  tried.  Through  the  narrow 
lane  between  the  people  he  made  his  way 
from  the  west  door  to  the  chapel  behind 
the  altar.  Beside  him  walked  the  two 
most  powerful  men  in  England,  greatest 
in  riches  and  in  influence,  and  highest  in 
station,  Lord  Percy  and  Duke  John  of 
Gaunt.  Behind  him  walked  the  represent- 
atives of  the  four  Orders  of  friars,  one 
for  the  Order  of  St.  Dominic,  one  for 
the  Order  of  St.  Francis,  two  for  lesser 
societies.  And  behind  them  came  men- 
at-arms.     The   archbishop   of   Canterbury 

334 


WYCLIFFE 


From  a  print  by   G.  White,  after  a  picture  in  the  collection 
of  the  Duke  ot  Dorset 


WYCLIFFE  235 

was  to  be  the  judge;  the  bishop  of  London 
was  to  be  the  accuser. 

"  Sit  down,  Wycliffe,"  said  Lord  Percy, 
"  Since  you  have  much  to  reply,  you  will 
need  all  the  softer  seat."  ''  Stand  up, 
Wycliffe,"  cried  the  bishop  of  London. 
*'  An  accused  man  may  not  sit  in  the 
presence  of  the  judge."  "Nay,  but  he 
shall  sit,"  shouted  the  lord.  "Nay,  but 
he  shall  stand,"  shouted  the  bishop.  And 
then  the  men-at-arms  took  one  side  of  the 
dispute,  and  the  townspeople  took  the 
other  side.  And  so  they  fell  to  fighting. 
The  church  was  filled  with  noise  and 
violence.  In  the  midst  of  the  tumult, 
Wycliffe  was  carried  off  in  safety. 

John  Wycliffe  was  a  professor  in  the 
University  of  Oxford.  He  was  the 
greatest  scholar  and  the  greatest  preacher 
of  his  time.  As  a  scholar  he  wrote 
in  Latin  for  the  reading  of  learned 
men,  and  proved  his  points  by  the 
complicated  logic  in  which  learned  men 


236  WYCLIFFE 

delighted.  As  a  preacher,  he  spoke  In 
English,  plainly,  directly,  and  to  the 
hearts  of  his  hearers.  Both  in  Latin  and 
in  English  he  said  things  which  made  all 
England  give  attention  to  him. 

Wycliffe  attacked  the  privileges  of  the 
Church.  He  said  that  the  Church  was 
too  rich.  He  found  that  the  temptations 
of  wealth  and  power,  against  which  Domi- 
nic and  Francis  had  done  their  best,  were 
constantly  increasing.  Every  day  the 
Church  was  piling  up  its  treasure  and 
extending  its  land.  Even  the  Dominicans 
and  Franciscans,  bound  as  they  were  to 
poverty,  were  building  splendid  monas- 
teries and  gathering  gold  as  a  farmer 
gathers  fruit.  It  is  true  that  no  friar  had 
anything  for  his  own,  but  the  Orders  grew 
rich,  and  the  "  little  brothers  of  the  poor," 
as  Francis  had  called  them,  lived  in  pal- 
aces. The  people  hated  them  for  their 
wealth,  but  still  more  because,  being  so 
rich,  they  still  said  that  they  were  poor. 


WYCLIFFE  237 

Beside  the  great  houses  of  the  friars, 
Dominican  and  Franciscan,  were  the 
greater  houses  of  the  monks,  Benedictine, 
Cluniac,  Cistercian.  A  third  of  the  land 
and  wealth  of  England  was  said  to  be  in 
the  possession  of  the  Church. 

Now,  at  that  time,  the  theory  was  that 
the  chief  business  of  the  Church  is  to  deal 
on  behalf  of  men  with  God. 

God  sat  far  away  upon  a  vast  gold 
throne,  and  could  be  approached  only  as 
the  king  was  approached,  by  His  courtiers. 
Whoever  wanted  anything  of  God  must 
get  it  in  this  way.  They  who  were  en- 
gaged in  fighting,  as  most  strong  men  were, 
could  get  God  on  their  side,  they  thought, 
by  keeping  the  friendship  of  the  Church. 
So  they  gave  gifts  to  the  clergy;  as  busi- 
ness men,  in  places  where  a  city  is  ruled 
by  a  political  ring,  give  gifts  to  politi- 
cians. 

The  main  matter,  however,  concerning 
which  the   Church  was  believed   to  have 


238  WYCLIFFE 

influence  with  God  was  that  of  punish- 
ment for  sin.  People  were  continually 
taught  that  they  would  be  punished  for 
their  sins.  In  almost  every  church  a  great 
picture  of  the  Last  Judgment  was  painted 
on  the  wall.  Michael  Angelo's  Last  Judg- 
ment, in  the  Sistine  Chapel,  is  a  familiar 
example.  The  pictures  showed  the  tor- 
ments of  hell.  But  there  was  a  way  of 
escape.  The  Church  could  save  men  from 
these  torments.  The  process  was  to  confess 
one's  sins  to  a  priest,  to  be  absolved  by 
him  in  the  name  of  God,  and  to  perform 
such  penance  as  the  priest  might  direct. 
And  this  help  was  applied  even  to  those 
who  had  already  gone  into  the  world  un- 
seen. The  prayers  of  the  priests  were  be- 
lieved to  be  powerful  even  for  such  as 
these.  They  might  still  be  saved  from 
pain,  and  helped  on  into  heaven. 

Thus  men  and  women  employed  the 
services  of  the  Church  both  for  themselves 
and  for  their  friends.     They  gave  lands, 


WYCLIFFE  239 

built  churches,  and  paid  money  accord- 
ing to  their  means,  in  order  to  save  them- 
selves and  those  whom  they  loved  from 
the  distress  of  punishment  for  sin  in  the 
vy^orld  to  come.  The  value  of  the  Church 
was  thought  to  consist,  not  in  its  relation 
to  this  present  life,  helping  people  to  be 
better,  but  in  its  relation  to  the  future  life. 
The  theory  that  sin  could  be  committed 
without  fear  of  punishment  by  paying 
the  Church  to  save  the  sinner  from  the 
pain  which  he  deserved,  encouraged  men 
in  sin.  The  principal  business  of  a  man 
of  religion, — a  priest,  a  monk,  or  a  friar, — 
was  to  say  prayers.  The  purpose  of 
the  Church  was  not  so  much  to  change 
the  will  of  men,  making  them  better, 
as  to  change  the  will  of  God,  making 
Him  more  kind  to  sinners.  And  the 
great  wealth  which  the  Church  got  in 
payment  for  these  services  was  spent  upon 
the  Church.  The  people  got  nothing  back 
but  prayers. 


240  WYCLIFFE 

It  was  for  speaking  against  all  this  that 
Wycliffe  had  been  brought  to  trial.  The 
one  thing  plain  at  that  moment  to  his  mind 
was  that  the  Church  was  injured  by  its 
wealth.  He  felt,  like  Dominic  and 
Francis,  that  poverty  was  essential  to  reli- 
gion. What  they  meant  was  that  a  self- 
seeking  Church,  getting  everything  and 
giving  nothing,  was  in  no  position  to  do 
its  true  work  in  the  world.  Wycliffe  pro- 
posed that  the  property  of  the  Church 
be  taken  away.  That  was  the  best  solution 
he  could  think  of.  And  Lord  Percy  and 
Duke  John  of  Gaunt  agreed  with  him 
most  heartily;  for  when  the  property  of 
the  Church  was  taken  away  they  hoped 
to  get  a  large  share  of  it  for  them- 
selves. 

All  this  social  preaching  of  Wycliffe, 
wise  or  unwise,  was  suddenly  stopped  by 
the  Peasants'  Revolt.  All  over  England, 
the  poor  arose  against  the  rich.  The  times 
were  hard  and  people  were  hungry.     The 


WYCLIFFE  241 

situation  was  embittered  by  a  long  and 
unsuccessful  war  with  France,  for  whose 
heavy  and  foolish  expenses  the  land  was 
taxed.  Then  came  John  Ball  and  Wat 
Tyler  and  other  leaders,  and  burned  cas- 
tles, and  invaded  London.  And  their  at- 
tack was  directed,  not  only  against  the 
rich  towns,  but  against  the  rich  monas- 
teries. The  archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
who  was  to  have  judged  WyclifTe  in  St. 
Paul's,  they  killed,  and  they  would  have 
killed  John  of  Gaunt  also  if  they  could 
have  caught  him.  It  was  made  plain  that 
all  wealth,  whether  held  by  laymen  or  by 
churchmen,  was  in  peril.  Any  attack 
upon  it,  even  with  the  best  of  motives, 
was  likely  to  be  like  a  lighted  match 
beside  a  magazine  of  powder.  The 
Peasants'  Revolt  stopped  the  assault 
of  Wycliffe  upon  the  bad  wealth  of  the 
Church. 

He    turned    his    attention    to    bad    doc- 
trine. 


242  WYCLIFFE 

It  became  plain  to  Wycliffe  that  the 
power  and  the  wealth  which  were  destroy- 
ing the  spiritual  life  of  the  Church  were 
due  to  the  evil  influences  of  a  mistaken 
doctrine  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  Accord- 
ing to  this  doctrine,  the  pronouncing  of 
certain  words  by  a  priest  in  the  service 
had  the  effect  of  bringing  Christ  to  the 
altar  at  which  he  ministered.  The  bread 
of  the  Supper  was  changed  by  the  priest's 
words  into  the  body  of  Christ,  and  the 
wine  into  the  blood  of  Christ.  Thus  the 
priest  brought  God  down  out  of  heaven. 
The  miracle  proved  the  priest's  power 
with  God.  This  power  he  could  turn  for 
or  against  men  as  he  chose.  He  could 
save  men  from  the  punishment  of  their 
sins,  or  he  could  condemn  them  to  ever- 
lasting torment.  His  blessing  was  the 
blessing  of  heaven;  his  curse  was  the  curse 
of  hell. 

This  doctrine  Wycliffe  denied.  In  his 
lecture    room    at   Oxford    he    showed   his 


WYCLIFFE  243 

pupils  that  it  had  no  foundation  in  Scrip- 
ture or  in  reason.  The  bread  of  the  sacra- 
ment was  bread  still,  the  wine  was  wine 
still.  The  presence  of  Christ  was  a  spirit- 
ual presence.  As  for  the  excommunica- 
tions of  the  Church,  they  are  of  effect, 
he  said,  only  when  they  are  deserved.  The 
way  to  be  saved  is  not  by  sacraments  but 
by  godly  living.  Every  man  may  come 
straight  to  God  without  the  aid  of  any 
priest. 

The  new  teaching  startled  the  country. 
John  of  Gaunt  hurried  down  to  Oxford  to 
tell  Wycliffe  that  he  could  expect  no 
protection  from  the  court  for  such  ideas 
as  these.  The  pope  sent  word  from  Rome 
to  have  the  preacher  silenced.  But  Wyc- 
liffe replied  to  John  of  Gaunt  that  he 
proposed  to  follow  truth  wherever  it 
might  lead  him.  As  for  the  pope,  he 
said  that  the  Greek  Church  got  on  very 
well  without  any  pope,  and  he  thought 
the  Latin  Church  might  do  the  same. 


244  WYCLIFFE 

They  held  a  council  against  him  in 
London  and  condemned  his  teachings. 
But  in  the  afternoon,  while  the  churchmen 
were  busy  pointing  out  his  errors,  there 
came  a  tremendous  earthquake.  The 
whole  house  in  which  they  sat  was  shaken, 
church  steeples  fell,  and  towers  of  castles 
were  destroyed.  The  effect  of  this  singu- 
lar coincidence  was  to  strengthen  the  influ- 
ence of  Wycliffe.  He  w^as,  indeed, 
dismissed  from  his  professorship  at  Ox- 
ford; but  he  retired  to  his  parish  at 
Lutterworth,  and  there  continued  both  to 
write  and  to  preach. 

The  little  parish  became  the  center  of 
the  new  movement.  Wycliffe  took  up  the 
work  of  Dominic  and  Francis.  Dominic 
had  tried  to  save  the  Church  by  the 
preaching  of  the  truth;  the  Dominicans 
were  to  reason  with  heretics.  But  the  plan 
had  failed,  and  instead  of  convincing  men 
by  reason  the  endeavor  was  made  to  com- 
pel them  by  torture.     Francis  had  tried  to 


WYCLIFFE  245 

save  the  Church  by  living  a  life  of  love. 
But  his  example  was  followed  only  for 
a  little  while.  The  time  came  when  the 
Franciscans  who  desired  to  live  like 
Francis  were  persecuted  by  the  Francis- 
cans who  desired  to  live  more  comfortably. 
Wyclifife  sent  out  men  from  Lutterworth 
to  save  the  Church  by  attacking  the  posi- 
tions which  made  the  Church  strong  as 
an  institution  but  weak  as  an  influence 
for  good.  These  men,  clad  in  long 
russet  gowns,  and  called  Lollards,  car- 
ried in  their  hands  pages  of  the  English 
Bible. 

Wyclifife,  in  his  quiet  rectory  of  Lutter- 
worth, had  translated  the  Bible.  He  had 
taken  it  over  from  the  Latin  of  Jerome, 
and  had  made  it  speak  the  common  speech 
of  the  people.  That  speech  would  sound 
strange  in  our  ears.  The  English  language 
had  not  yet  come  into  the  form  which  we 
have  it  now.  Chaucer,  about  the  same 
time,  was  writing  the   Canterbury  Tales. 


246  WYCLIFFE 

A  glance  at  Chaucer's  pages  shows  how 
like  his  English  was  to  ours,  and  yet  how 
very  different.  But  that  was  how  men 
spoke.  And  when  the  Bible  was  read  to 
them  in  those  words,  they  understood  it. 
That  was  what  Wycliffe  wanted.  He 
believed  that  what  was  needed  to  save 
the  Church  was  an  understanding  of  the 
Bible,  and  a  return  to  the  spirit  of  the 
Bible.  "  Here,"  cried  the  Lollards  in  the 
market-places,  "  here  is  God's  truth  in 
God's  book.  Where  are  the  priests,  where 
are  the  penances,  where  the  images  of 
the  saints,  where  are  the  prayers  for  the 
dead,  where  is  the  ritual  of  the  sacrament 
of  the  altar,  where  is  the  pope,  in  God's 
book?  " 

Wycliffe  died  in  peace,  being  taken 
with  his  last  illness  in  the  midst  of  a 
service  in  his  church.  Half  a  century 
later,  his  enemies  dug  up  his  body  and 
burned  it,  and  cast  the  ashes  upon  the 
surface  of  the  little  river  Swift.     And  the 


WYCLIFFE  247 

Swift,  as  his  friends  said,  bore  them  to 
the  Severn,  and  the  Severn  to  the  sea. 
It  was  a  symbol  of  the  spread  of  Wyc- 
liffe's  influence.  For  Wycliffe  was  the 
beginner   of   the   English    Reformation. 


HUS 

1373-1415 

The  splendid  hope  of  Hildebrand  and 
Innocent  that  the  bishop  of  Rome  would 
make  the  bad  world  good,  had  come  to 
naught.  They  had  dreamed  of  a  great 
pope  ministering  to  the  nations  as  a  pastor 
ministers  to  his  people,  correcting  the 
wrong  and  commending  the  right,  having 
moral  authority  over  kings,  and  making 
peace  in  the  place  of  war.  They  felt  that 
what  Europe  needed  was  the  control  of  a 
strong,  wise,   and  good  man. 

Unhappily,  for  three  hundred  years, 
from  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury to  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth, 
hardly  a  pope  was  either  strong,  or  wise, 
or  good.  Some  were  politicians,  who 
made  bargains  for  money  and  power  with 

kings.     Some  were  well-meaning  but  weak 

248 


JOHN  HUS 

From  the  Herrenhut  Archives 


250  HUS 

tian  men  representing  the  Church  is 
superior  to  all  popes.  An  attempt  was 
made  to  get  both  popes  to  resign  for  the 
good  of  the  Church.  When  they  refused, 
the  council  put  them  both  out,  and  chose 
another,  Alexander  V.  He  died  after  a 
short  time,  and  John  XXIII.,  who  is 
thought  to  have  poisoned  him,  became 
pope  in  his  place.  Thus,  although  two 
scandals  were  amended, — the  scandal  of 
the  papal  court  at  Avignon,  and  the  scan- 
dal of  the  papal  schism, — the  worst  of  the 
scandals  remained:  the  pope  was  still  a 
man  of  wicked  life. 

John  XXIII.  is  said  to  have  begun  his 
career  as  a  pirate.  The  record  of  his  mis- 
deeds was  such  that  before  it  was  read  to 
the  Council  which  finally  deposed  him, 
all  outsiders  were  put  out  and  the  doors 
were  locked.  It  was  John  who  began  that 
public  and  shameless  sale  of  indulgences 
which  hastened  the  Reformation.  He 
conceived    the    ingenious    idea   of   making 


HUS  251 

money  by  sending  agents  all  over  Europe 
who  promised  to  release  sinners  from  the 
punishment  due  to  their  sins  on  the  pay- 
ment of  certain  specified  prices.  Of 
course,  there  were  still  good  Christians. 
There  were  faithful  ministers  who  lived 
devout  lives,  and  tried  to  help  their  people 
to  do  right.  But  the  great  Church,  as 
represented  by  the  pope  at  the  head,  and 
by  the  bishops,  the  monks,  and  the  friars, 
was  teaching  men,  by  constant  example, 
to  break  the  Ten   Commandments. 

It  was  against  this  dreadful  situation 
that  Wycliffe  had  protested,  but  the 
remedies  which  he  had  proposed  seemed 
as  bad  as  the  disease.  When  he  said  that 
the  trouble  with  the  Church  was  wealth 
and  power,  many  agreed;  but  when  he 
proposed  to  take  away  the  wealth  by 
giving  up  the  property  of  the  Church,  and 
to  take  away  the  power  by  giving  up  the 
doctrine  of  the  miracle  of  the  Body  and 
Blood,  they  would  not  follow  him. 


252  HUS 

Neither  would  they  follow  Hus. 

John  Hus  was  a  professor  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Prague,  and  the  greatest 
preacher  in  that  part  of  the  country. 
Born  on  a  farm,  and  getting  his  education 
in  spite  of  such  poverty  that  he  begged 
in  the  street,  Hus  had  made  himself  a 
scholar  and  a  leader.  He  was  a  man  of 
simple  mind,  and  righteous  life  and  plain 
speech.  He  saw  the  evils  in  the  Church 
about  him,  and  made  it  the  business  of  his 
life  to  put  an  end  to  them.  The  books 
of  Wycliffe  came  to  his  knowledge  and 
he  liked  them  greatly. 

Now,  there  are  two  ways  in  which  to 
deal  with  evil.  One  way  is  to  attack  in 
general,  without  making  mention  of  any 
names.  The  other  way  is  to  attack  it  in 
particular,  singling  out  certain  offenders 
and  denouncing  them.  The  first  way  is 
easy  and  safe;  the  second  is  full  of  danger. 
Hus  took  the  second  way. 

For  example,  at  the  town  of  Wilsnack, 


HUS  253 

the  priests  of  one  of  the  churches  had 
announced  a  miracle.  They  said  that  it 
was  now  proved  that  the  bread  in  the 
Lord's  Supper  is  indeed  the  Body  of 
Christ  because  pieces  of  it  on  their  altar 
had  shed  blood.  And  the  Holy  Blood  of 
Wilsnack  began  to  work  miracles.  Pil- 
grims came  from  all  directions,  bringing 
their  sick,  to  the  great  advantage  of  the 
Wilsnack  church.  Hus  was  sent  to  look 
into  the  matter,  and  he  found  that  it  was 
all  a  fraud.  The  result  was  that  the  pil- 
grimages to  Wilsnack  stopped.  But  the 
Wilsnack  clergy  hated  Hus. 

And  other  clergy,  for  like  reasons,  hated 
him.  The  man  was  absolutely  outspoken. 
He  had  no  "  tact,"  as  we  say.  He  never 
considered  whether  his  words  would  have 
a  pleasant  sound  or  not.  He  paid  no  heed 
to  his  own  interest.  Every  day,  he  made 
enemies.  At  that  time  the  most  unpopular 
name  in  Europe  was  that  of  WyclifTe. 
He   was    much    more    disliked    by    many 


254  HUS 

people  than  the  scandalous  popes  who  were 
busy  breaking  the  commandments.  Hus 
approved  of  him.  He  did  not  go  with  all 
the  attacks  which  Wycliffe  made  on  church 
doctrine,  but  he  liked  every  word  which 
Wycliffe  said  about  the  wicked  lives  of 
churchmen.  And  he  said  so  openly.  At 
a  time  when  bishops  were  burning  Wyc- 
liflfe's  books,  Hus  was  reading  them  and 
praising  them.  He  was  saying  in  Prague 
what  Wycliffe  had  said  at  Oxford. 

Hus  was  therefore  summoned  by  his 
enemies  to  defend  himself  before  the 
council  which  was  called  to  meet  at  Con- 
stance. Over  this  council  the  Emperor 
Sigismund  was  to  preside.  Hus  in  his 
simplicity  and  innocence,  knowing  him- 
self to  be  opposed  to  nothing  in  the 
Church  except  its  sins,  agreed  to  appear 
before  the  council,  and  the  emperor  gave 
him  a  safe-conduct.  This  was  a  paper 
signed  by  the  emperor  himself  promising 
that  Hus  should  be  safe  from  violence  and 


HUS  255 

should  be  brought  back  from  the  council 
to  his  home  by  the  emperor's  own  guard, 
if  necessary.     Thus  he  went. 

The  council  immediately  arrested  Hus, 
and  put  him  in  prison.  They  paid  no 
heed  to  the  safe-conduct  of  the  emperor, 
and  the  emperor,  on  his  side,  made  no 
serious  protest.  The  theory  was  that  any 
man  accused  of  heresy  was  to  be  accounted 
a  heretic  until  he  had  proved  himself 
innocent,  and  that  no  faith  was  to  be  kept 
with  heretics.  No  matter  what  promises 
had  been  made,  what  safe-conducts  given, 
what  oaths  solemnly  sworn,  all  went  for 
nothing  in  the  case  of  a  heretic. 

So  Hus  was  put  in  prison  before  his 
trial  had  begun,  and  then  was  moved  to 
another  prison  where  he  was  chained  by 
the  arms  in  the  daytime  and  by  the  arms 
and  legs  at  night.  These  were  some  of  the 
more  gentle  measures  of  the  Inquisition. 

When  he  was  brought  at  last  before  the 
council,    he   was    hooted    down   whenever 


256  HUS 

he  began  to  speak.  Charges  were  read 
against  him;  passages  were  taken  from  his 
books  and  from  the  books  of  Wyclifife, 
which  were  held  to  be  against  the  faith 
and  order  of  the  Church.  Some  of  these 
he  denied  as  not  expressing  his  beliefs; 
some  he  said  he  would  gladly  change  if 
anybody  could  show  him  that  they  were 
not  true.  He  refused  to  change  any 
opinion  by  reason  of  compulsion.  He 
declared  the  independence  of  man's  con- 
science, and  held  that  belief  is  a  matter 
of  persuasion  and  conviction,  not  of 
authority. 

This  was  his  chief  fault.  He  had  won 
the  hatred  of  the  Church  by  his  free 
speech  concerning  the  sins  of  churchmen; 
he  was  condemned  and  sentenced  because 
he  maintained  the  right  of  a  man  who  is 
in  error  to  be  shown  his  error.  His  only 
error  was  that  of  insisting  that  a  Christian 
minister,  even  a  pope,  ought  to  be  a  good 
man.      That    that   was    an    error,    nobody 


HUS  257 

could  convince  him.  As  for  heresy,  he 
had  none  of  it. 

Nevertheless,  they  condemned  him  to  be 
burned.  That  was  the  answer  of  the 
council  to  the  man  who  tried  to  bring 
back  into  the  Church  the  plain  righteous- 
ness of  true  religion.  They  agreed  that  the 
Church  needed  to  be  reformed,  and  had 
assembled  for  the  purpose  of  reforming  it. 
But  they  did  not  like  John  Hus's  way. 

They  degraded  him  from  the  ministry, 
dressing  him  in  the  garments  of  a  priest,  and 
putting  a  chalice  and  paten  in  his  hand, 
and  then  taking  them  away  with  curses. 
"  We  commit  thy  soul,"  they  said,  "  to  the 
devil."  "  And  I  commit  it,"  he  answered, 
"  to  the  most  sacred  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

Then  they  put  a  paper  cap  upon  his 
head,  with  a  writing  on  it  saying  that  he 
died  for  heresy.  He  was  taken  out  and 
tied  to  a  stake,  with  a  chain  about  his 
neck.  Fagots  were  heaped  about  him,  and 
he  was  burned  to  death. 


SAVONAROLA 

1452-1498 

The  monastery  of  San  Marco  in  Flor- 
ence faces  a  quiet  square,  and  is  adorned 
with  the  paintings  of  Fra  Angelico.  There 
is  the  picture  of  the  two  disciples  who 
invite  the  Lord  to  come  and  be  their 
guest,  and  the  picture  of  the  brother  with 
his  finger  on  his  lips  in  symbol  of  silence. 
In  every  cell  is  painted  a  Madonna,  or  a 
crucifix,  or  the  figure  of  an  angel,  to  help 
the  prayers  of  the  friars  of  St.  Dominic. 
In  one  cell,  somewhat  apart  from  the 
others,  meant  for  the  prior,  are  treasured 
a  desk  at  which  Savonarola  wrote  and  a 
chair  in  which  he  sat,  and  a  portrait  of 
him  hangs  upon   the  wall. 

Savonarola  had  intended  to  be  a  doctor, 
like  his  grandfather;  though  even  as  a  lad 
he  was  interested  in  theology,  and  looked 


2e8 


~^tin.->^^;ir-  ■■  »*ne'  1^  - 


& 


HiltRONilAJ  'F£P.R.\RiENSlSM:)£U' 
^  MISSI-PROPHETyE»EFFIGIES<^- 


«■-■      I        ^w- 


SAVONAROLA 

From  the  picture  by  Fra  Bartolommeo,  San  Marco,  Florence 


SAVONAROLA  259 

out  upon  the  world  with  serious  eyes.  At 
the  age  of  nineteen,  he  was  deeply  in  love 
with  a  girl  whose  parents  would  not  allow 
her  to  marry  him.  His  family,  they  said, 
was  not  so  good  as  hers.  This  made  him 
more  serious  still.  He  had  never  cared 
for  the  pleasures  of  society;  now  he  hated 
them.  He  wrote  an  essay  about  this  time, 
entitled,  "  Contempt  of  the  World." 

It  was  a  bad  world;  that  was  plain  even 
to  a  young  man  of  nineteen.  What  Hus 
saw  in  the  streets  of  Prague,  Savonarola 
saw  in  the  streets  of  Ferrara.  There  were 
pride  and  oppression,  vice  and  drunken- 
ness, men  fighting  with  sharp  swords  and 
women  looking  on  applauding,  and  no 
peace  or  order.  Savonarola  separated  him- 
self from  it.  He  entered  a  monastery  and 
became  a  Dominican.  Presently  he  was 
sent  to  live  in  Florence  with  the  brothers 
of  San  Marco. 

The  ruler  of  Florence  was  Lorenzo, 
called     "  the     Magnificent."      Under    his 


26o  SAVONAROLA 

government  all  bad  things  were  growing 
in  the  city  like  weeds  on  a  neglected  farm. 
Lorenzo  was  intent  on  power  and  money, 
and  cared  little  how  he  got  them.  With 
all  his  splendid  titles,  his  robes  of  state 
and  his  palace,  he  was  like  the  political 
bosses,  who  to-day  get  control  of  cities, 
throw  open  all  the  doors  of  wickedness,, 
and  tax  honest  citizens  for  their  own 
advantage. 

It  was  found  that  the  new  brother  at 
San  Marco  could  preach.  Not  very  well, 
it  seemed  at  first,  when  he  took  common- 
place texts  and  treated  them  in  common- 
place ways.  But  one  day,  as  he  spoke  in 
the  pulpit  concerning  the  Day  of  Judg- 
ment, a  sudden  inspiration  came  upon 
him.  He  denounced  the  sins  of  men  in 
the  light  of  the  flames  of  that  awful  day 
of  punishment,  till  his  hearers  wept  and 
trembled.  Afterwards  they  said  that  they 
saw  a  halo  gleaming  round  his  head. 

And  then,  as  he  preached  again,  he  had 


SAVONAROLA  261 

a  vision  of  a  flaming  sword,  and  heard 
voices  promising  the  mercy  of  God  to  the 
faithful  and  the  wrath  of  God  to  the  un- 
faithful, and,  as  he  looked,  the  sword  was 
lifted  against  the  earth  amidst  the  flash 
of  lightnings  and  the  crash  of  thunders. 

With  this  new  eloquence,  in  the  spirit 
of  the  Day  of  Judgment,  Savonarola  at- 
tacked the  city  government  of  Florence. 
He  took  his  texts  out  of  the  Bible,  and 
mainly  from  the  prophets  of  the  Old 
Testament,  but  in  every  text  he  succeeded 
in  finding  something  against  Lorenzo  the 
Magnificent 

He  was  made  prior  of  the  monastery. 
It  was  a  bold  election,  not  only  because 
some  of  the  chief  citizens  had  protested 
against  his  sermons,  but  because  Lorenzo 
was  the  great  patron  of  San  Marco.  The 
monastery  had  been  rebuilt  by  his  father, 
and  he  himself  had  enriched  and  adorned 
it.  Suppose,  now,  that  the  richest,  most 
generous,   and  most  influential   person   in 


262  SAVONAROLA 

the  parish  is  at  the  same  time  an  unscru- 
pulous political  boss  and  a  man  of  evil 
life;  what  shall  the  parson  do?  That  was 
the  question  which  confronted  the  new 
prior,  and  he  answered  by  continuing  his 
sermons  against  Lorenzo. 

When  Lorenzo  lay  upon  his  deathbed, 
he  sent  for  Savonarola.  He  knew  that 
there  was  one  fearless  and  honest  minister 
in  Florence,  and  he  wished  his  counsel 
in  the  preparation  of  his  soul.  Savonarola 
said,  "  You  must  repent,  and  trust  in  the 
mercy  of  God."  To  this  Lorenzo  assented. 
"  You  must  give  up  the  wealth  which  you 
have  taken  by  dishonest  means."  To  this 
also,  after  some  hesitation,  he  assented. 
"  You  must  restore  the  liberties  of  Flor- 
ence." Then  Lorenzo  turned  his  face  to 
the  wall,  and  made  no  answer,  and  the 
prior  in  silence  came  away. 

The  liberties  of  Florence  were  restored 
by  Savonarola.  In  the  confusion  which 
followed  the  death  of  Lorenzo,  the  prior 


SAVONAROLA  263 

was  chosen  as  the  natural  leader  of  the 
decent  citizens.  The  king  of  France  was 
fighting  the  king  of  Naples.  Down  he 
came  with  his  army,  and  entered  Florence; 
and  out  he  went  again,  by  reason  of  the 
moral  strength  of  Savonarola.  When  the 
king  threatened  the  city,  saying,  "  I  will 
sound  my  trumpets,"  it  was  in  the  spirit 
of  Savonarola  that  Capponi  answered, 
"  Then  we  will  ring  our  bells." 

Thus  Savonarola  prevailed  in  Florence. 
He  drew  up  a  new  plan  of  government  by 
which  the  magistrates  were  bound  to  the 
fear  of  God  and  the  purification  of  man- 
ners, and  to  promote  the  public  welfare 
in  preference  to  private  interests.  Jesus 
Christ  was  solemnly  proclaimed  the  king 
of  Florence.  People  put  off  their  gay 
clothes,  and  dressed  soberly.  Hymns  took 
the  place  of  the  popular  songs.  One  day, 
men  and  women  brought  their  "  vanities," 
their  fine  apparel,  their  adornments,  and 
burned  them  in  a  great  bonfire,  while  the 


264  SAVONAROLA 

Dominicans  of  San  Marco,  hand  in  hand, 
danced  about  the  flames,  to  the  glory  of 
God. 

But  there  were  enemies.  There  were 
many  people  whose  hearts  were  not 
touched  by  the  preaching  of  Savonarola, 
and  who  disliked  all  this  new  plainness  and 
simplicity.  They  honestly  hated  hymns, 
and  desired  the  open  doors  of  Lorenzo's 
time.  There  were  also  the  Franciscans, 
who  were  jealous  of  the  popularity  of  the 
Dominicans.     And  there  was  the  pope. 

The  very  name  of  the  family  to  which 
the  pope  of  that  day  belonged,  is  a 
synonym  of  shameless  evil.  He  was  a 
Borgia.  He  had  abandoned  all  righteous- 
ness, and  was  suspected  of  having  aban- 
doned all  Christian  faith  as  well.  He  was 
a  criminal  and  a  heretic,  and  yet  the  pope. 
Savonarola  denounced  him,  as  he  had  de- 
nounced  Lorenzo. 

But  the  pope  was  possessed  of  all  the 
power  of  great  wealth  and  great  position. 


SAVONAROLA  265 

He  could  bribe  with  one  hand,  and  curse 
with  the  other.  Powerful  as  he  was,  he 
yet  saw  that  it  was  not  safe  to  let  him- 
self be  publicly  abused  by  popular  preach- 
ers. There  were  too  many  people  who 
would  listen  to  such  preaching  eagerly. 
The  Middle  Ages  were  drawing  to  a 
close.  Already  new  ideas  were  beginning 
to  stir  the  minds  of  men.  The  fall  of 
Constantinople  at  the  hands  of  the  Turks, 
in  1453,  had  sent  fugitive  Greek  scholars 
into  Europe,  and  men  were  beginning  to 
read  the  Greek  Testament,  with  new 
understanding.  The  discovery  of  America, 
in  1492,  was  disclosing  the  greatness 
of  the  world;  the  invention  of  print- 
ing was  making  it  possible  for  plain 
men  to  read  books  for  themselves, 
and  make  up  their  own  minds.  The 
invention  of  powder  was  putting  a 
new  strength  into  the  arms  of  peasants. 
The  protests  of  the  Albigenses,  of  the  Lol- 
lards, of  the  Hussites,  were  revealing  an 


266  SAVONAROLA 

increasing  unrest  in  the  face  of  the  sins 
of  churchmen.  Reforming  councils  were 
deposing  even  popes.  Alexander  Borgia 
was  afraid  to  allow  Savonarola  to  preach 
his  fierce  sermons.  People  were  so  in- 
terested in  them  that  they  crowded  the 
cathedral  before  the  sun  was  up,  on 
preaching  days,  each  with  his  lighted 
candle. 

Then  all  the  enemies  fell  upon  the 
prior.  The  pope  excommunicated  him. 
The  Franciscans  proposed  a  trial  by  fire, 
according  to  an  ancient  custom:  a  Francis- 
can on  one  side,  and  a  Dominican  on  the 
other,  were  to  walk  across  the  wide  square 
between  rows  of  blazing  fagots,  and  the 
one  who  got  through  safely  would  be 
proved  to  be  in  the  right.  The  rows 
of  fagots  were  built,  and  all  Florence  was 
there  to  see.  But  the  Franciscans,  though 
it  was  their  champion  who  would  not 
venture,  contrived  to  put  the  blame  on 
the  Dominicans.     Savonarola  and  his  friars, 


SAVONAROLA  267 

as  they  marched  back  to  San  Marco,  were 
hooted  and  stoned.  It  was  evident  that 
his    righteous    power   was    broken. 

The  monaster}'  was  stormed  by  a  mob. 
The  doors  were  broken  down;  citizens  and 
friars  fought  together.  Fra  Domenico, 
Savonarola's  faithful  friend,  defended  the 
prior  with  a  huge  candlestick,  which  he 
wielded  like  a  club.  But  Savonarola  was 
arrested,  and  Domenico  with  him,  and  an- 
other also,  named  Silvestro.  They  were 
tried,  as  the  manner  was,  by  torture,  and 
condemned.  "  I  separate  thee,"  said  the 
bishop,  "  from  the  Church  militant  and 
from  the  Church  triumphant"  "  Xot  from 
the  Church  triumphant,"  said  the  mam'r: 
"  That   is   beyond   thy  power." 

A  bronze  tablet  in  the  pavement  of  the 
great  square  of  Florence  shows  where 
Savonarola  and  his  friends  were  first 
hanged  and  then  burned  for  their  attack 
upon  the  wickedness  of  the  world  and  of 
the  Church. 


268  SAVONAROLA 

Thus  passes  the  procession  of  our 
twenty  saints  and  heroes.  The  list  ends 
with  a  martyr,  as  it  began.  And  every 
man  came  into  acquaintance  with  diffi- 
culty and  danger.  They  might  have  lived 
in  peace  and  comfort  like  their  neighbors, 
but  they  had  a  strong  longing  to  do  good. 
They  entered  with  great  joy  into  the  old 
war  between  wrong  and  right.  That  war 
is  as  new  as  it  is  old:  it  is  going  on  in 
our  neighborhood  to-day.  Indeed,  we  are 
all  enlisted  in  it,  on  one  side  or  the  other. 


THE   END 


THE  QUIETNESS  OF  DICK 

By  R.  E,  Vernede.     Illustrated  by  Victor  Perard. 
izmo.     $1.25  net ;  by  mail,  $1.35. 

"On  account  of  his  reputed  'quietness,'  Dick  is  invited  by 
Tod's  mother  to  help  her  petted  son  to  bear  the  ennui  of  his 
school  holidays.  From  the  moment  of  his  arrival  things 
begin  to  hum.  By  his  initiative  the  boys  climb  a  dangerous 
precipice  and  are  with  difficulty  rescued.  They  shoot  at  a 
lunatic,  catch  a  poacher,  steal  a  yacht,  discover  a  cave  and 
disclose  a  smuggler's  haunt.  They  unearth  a  buried  ship 
and  even  take  a  hand  in  the  love  affairs  of  the  governess.  In 
each  episode  Dick  comes  off  with  flying  colors,  having  earned 
the  gratitude  of  his  elders.  The  story  is  lively  and  humorous 
and  shows  an  interesting  study  of  the  youthful  Briton." 

— Chicago  Daily  News. 

"Thrilling  adventures  and  unlimited  fun.  .  .  .  The  humor  is  so 
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TOM  STRONG,  WASHINGTON'S    SCOUT 

By  Alfred  Bishop  Mason.     Illustrated.     lamo,  313  pp. 
$1.25  net;  by  mail,  $1.35. 

A  story  of  adventure.  The  boys  and  girls  who  read  this 
book  will  know  a  great  deal  more  about  the  American  Revo- 
lution than  most  American  citizens  do.  It  is  hoped  that  they 
will  enjoy  the  way  in  which  it  is  told  and  that  they  will 
heartily  like  the  shrewd  old  trapper  and  the  sturdy  and 
sunny-hearted  boy,  Tom  Strong.  The  story  is  historically 
correct. 

"A  story  of  patriotic  devotion  and  military  adventure  in  the  days  of 
the  Revolution.  From  the  defeat  at  Brooklyn  to  the  capture  of  York- 
town  the  sturdy,  sunny-hearted  hero  and  a  shrewd  old  trapper,  his 
friend,  share  historic  experiences.  Famous  leaders  on  the  Continental 
side  and  among  the  British  appear  in  the  story.  Pretty  Peggy  Shippen, 
later  Mrs.  Benedict  Arnold,  came  to  the  rescue  in  Philadelphia,  and 
her  tragic  experiences  serve  the  writer's  purpose.  ...  It  certainly 
maintains  continuous  interest."— C//rw/2'a«  Register. 

"Tom  Strong  saw  and  did  enough  to  keep  half  a  dozen  active  young- 
sters busy.  .  .  .  Zed  Pratt,  the  woodsman,  and  fat  Hans,  the 
Hessian,  were  friends  worth  having."— TWw  York  Sun. 

HENRY     HOLT     AND     COMPANY 

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By    CARROLL   WATSON    RANKIN 

STORIES    FOR    GIRLS 

THE  CASTAWAYS   OF  PETE'S   PATCH 

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a  baffled  game-warden  who  proved  to  be  somebody  else;  and 
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DANDELION  COTTAGE 

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THE  GIRLS    OF  GARDENVILLE 

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Interesting,  amusing,  and  natural  stories  of  a  girls'  club— 

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The  secret  of  Mrs.  Rankin's  charm  is  her  naturalness  .  .  .  real  girls 
.  .  .  not  young  ladies  with  "  pigtails,'  but  girls  of  sixteen  who  are  not 
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THE  LUCK  OF  THE  DUDLEY  GRAHAMS 

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A   family  story   of   city   life.     Lightened  by  humor 
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"  Sparkles  with  cleverness  and  humor." — Brooklyn 
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"  Cock-a-doodle  Hill  "  is  where  the  Dudley  Graham 
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COMPANION  STORIES  OF  COUNTRY  LIFE 

FOR  BOYS  By  CHARLES  P.  BURTON 

THE  BOYS  OF  BOB'S  HILL 

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"Tom  Sawyer  would  have  been  a  worthy  member  of  the  Bob's 
Hill  crowd  and  shared  their  good  times  and  thrilling  adventures 
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true  to  the  real  thing  in  boy  nature  as  one  can  ever  expect  to 
find  between  covers." — Christian  Register. 

THE  BOB'S  CAVE  BOYS 

Illustrated  by  VICTOR  PERARD.     $1 .50 

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—  The  Congregationalist. 

"Even  better  than  the  first  book,  will  interest  every  healthy 
youngster. "—CArii-//a«  Register. 

"  A  rousing  story  of  wide-awake  youngsters.  A  very  delight- 
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THE  BOB'S  HILL  BRAVES 

Illustrated  by  H.  S.  DeLay.     i2mo.     $1.50 

The  ' '  Bob's  Hill  "  band  spend  a  vacation  in  Illinois, 
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PETE,  COW  PUNCHER 

Perhaps  nowhere  else  can  a  more  faithful  picture,  ab- 
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hardships,  and  frequent  griminess  are  clearly  shown, 
but  the  spice  of  adventure  and  mortal  peril  is  not  lack- 
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derfoot who  becomes  a  cowboy. 

"Here  is  the  real  thing— the  cowboy's  daily  life  faithfully  de- 
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Yet,  while  there  is  not  a  prig  among  the  characters,  most  of  them 
are  as  respectable  as  your  neighbors.  .  .  .  Most  grown-ups,  as 
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trations are  pictures  of  real  people,  not  lay  H^nres."— Chicago 
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"Wholesomely  exciting  .  . .  stands  for  real  manliness."— CAr«j- 
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THE  TREASURE  (?/ M<?  CANYON 

A  story  of  adventure  in  Arizona.    $1.50 

Dick  Carew,  a  likable  young  fellow  of  sixteen,  joins 
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of  an  ancient  document,  giving  the  key  to  the  hiding- 
place  of  a  portion  of  the  treasures  of  Montezuma,  is 
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of  the  Grand  Canyon  of  the  Colorado.  Their  sub- 
sequent adventures  furnish  enough  thrills  for  even  the 
most  captious  boy  reader. 

"  A  bright,  wholesome  book  .  .  .  full  of  the  joy  of  youth  .  .  . 
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•'  The  narrative  is  bully  reading  for  boys  and  it  is  also  one  of 
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the  Cliff  Dwellers,  makes  it  a  valuable  work,  to  be  ranked 
among  the  masterpieces  of  books  for  the  young."— Aldany 
Journal. 

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BOOKS  OF  PLAYS  FOR  CHILDREN 

DESIGNED   FOR   USE  IN  THE   SCHOOLS 
By  CONSTANCE  D'ARCY  MACKAY 

THE     HOUSE     OF     THE     HEART 

AND    OTHER   PLAYS   FOR   CHILDREN 

Short  plays  in  verse  to  be  acted  by  children  of  four- 
teen or  younger.  Well  written,  with  clear  directions  for 
setting  and  costuming,  and  plenty  of  range  between 
simplicity  and  elaborateness,     ^i.io  net,  by  mail,  ^1.15. 

Contents: — "The  House  of  the  Heart"  (Morality 
Play) — '<The  Gooseherd  and  the  Goblin"  (Comedy) 
— "The  Enchanted  Garden"  (Flower  Play)— "Nimble 
Wit  and  Fingerkin "  (Industrial  Play) — "A  Little  Pil- 
grim's Progress ' '  (Morality  Play. — "A  Pageant  of  Hours" 
(To  be  given  Out  of  Doors) — "On  Christmas  Eve." 
"The  Elf  Child."  "The  Princess  and  the  Pixies." 
"  The  Christmas  Guest."     (Miracle  Play.) 

"  An  addition  to  child  drama  which  has  been  sorely  needed." 
— Boston   Transcript. 

THE  SILVER  THREAD  AND  OTHER  FOLK 
PLAYS  FOR  YOUNG  PEOPLE 

Simplicity  is  the  keynote  of  these  plays.  Each  has 
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especially  designed  to  fit  the  limitations  of  the  school- 
room stage,     ^i.  10  net;  by  mail,  $1.20. 

Contents: — "The  Silver  Thread"  (Cornish); 
"The  Forest  Spring"  (Italian^;  "The  Foam  Maiden'* 
(Celtic);  "Troll  Magic"  (Norwegian);  "The  Three 
Wishes"  (French);  "A  Brewing  of  Brains"  (English); 
"Siegfried"  (German);   " The  Snow  Witch  "  (Russian). 

HENRY     HOLT     AND     COMPANY 

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THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  NEW  FOREST 

By  Captain  Marryat.  Illustrated  in  color  and 
line  by  E.  Boyd  Smith.  Special  library  binding. 
$1.35  net. 

THE  LAST   OF  THE  MOHICANS 

By  James  Fenimore  Cooper.  Illustrated  in  color 
and  line  by  E.  Boyd  Smith.  Special  library  bind- 
ing-    $1-35  net. 

In  every  detail  of  illustration  and  manufacture  these  edi- 
tions are  made  as  if  these  books  were  being  published  for  the 
first  time  for  young  folks.  This  attempt  to  put  the  juvenile 
classics  in  a  form  which  on  its  looks  will  attract  children, 
is  meeting  with  widespread  support  from  the  public  and 
librarians. 

The  text  is  not  abridged. 

Mr.  Smith's  pictures  need  no  commendation,  but  he  seems 
to  have  treated  these  stories  with  unusual  skill  and  sym- 
pathy. 


HALF   A   HUNDRED  HERO  TALES 

Of  Ulysses  and  the  Men  of  Old.  By  various  authors, 
including  Nathaniel  Hawthorne.  Illustrated. 
Special  library  binding.     $1.35  net. 

The  Greek  and  Roman  mythological  heroes  whose  stories 
are  here  collected  are  not  covered  in  any  other  one  volume. 
The  arrangement  gives  the  interest  of  connected  narrative  to 
the  account  of  the  fall  of  Troy,  the  ^neas  stories,  and  the 
Adventures  of  Ulysses. 


HENRY     HOLT     AND     COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


In  the  American   Nature  Series 

For  Boys  and  Girls  from  9  to  16 

INSECT  STORIES 

By  VERNON  L.  KELLOGG,  author  of  "American 
Insects,"  etc.  Illustrated,  298  pp.,  large  i2mo,  $1.50  net, 
by  mail  $1.62. 

Strange,  true  stories,  primarily  for  children,  but  cer- 
tainly for  those  grown-ups  who  like  to  read  discriminat- 
ingly to  their  children,  finding  all  the  time  something 
of  point  of  view  or  allusion  especially  for  themselves. 

"  The  author  is  among  the  few  scientific  writers  of  distinction 
who  can  interest  the  popular  mind.  No  intelligent  youth  can  fail 
to  read  it  with  delight  and  profit." — The  Nation. 

"  They  have  that  rare  quality  possessed  by  Kipling's  '  Jungle 
Stories,'  which  make  them  enjoyed  by  both  old  and  young." — 
New  York  Globe. 

"  A  learned  and  undisputed  insect  authority  .  .  .  presents  a 
group  of  strange,  true  stories  of  insect  life,  primarily  for  young 
folks,  but  open  to  grown-up  nature  lovers,  that  are  little  short 
of  fascinating."— CAiVra^o  Record-Herald. 

THE    FRESH-WATER    AQUARIUM    AND    ITS 

INHABITANTS 

A  Guide  for  the  Amateur  Aquarist,  by  OTTO  EGGE- 

LING  and  FREDERICK  EHRENBERG.     With   100 

illustrations,  large  i2mo,  probable  price,  $1.75  net. 

This  volume  gives  clear  and  complete  instructions  to 
the  amateur.  It  describes,  and  illustrates  by  some  of 
the  finest  photographs  ever  taken  from  life,  the  great 
variety  of  plants,  fishes,  turtles,  frogs,  and  insects  that 
may  be  kept  indoors  in  health  and  contentment.  It 
furnishes  information  concerning  food,  treatment  in 
health  and  sickness,  methods  of  capture  and  handling, 
and  what  aquatic  creatures  will  or  will  not  live  in  peace 
together. 

"  Gives  all  the  necessary  information  for  maintaining  any  kind 
of  an  aquarium." — Cleveland  Plain  Dealer. 

"Applicable  to  the  smallest  boj^'s  essay  at  keeping  an  aquarium 
and  to  the  largest  scientific  collection." — A'ew  York  Sun. 

If  the  reader  will  send  his  name  and  address  the  publishers  will 
send,  from  time  to  time,  information  about  their  new  books. 

Henry   Holt  and  Company,  ^VJw  Yorl^' 


DATE  DUE 

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